I’m going to share something with all of you but first, I want to ask you a question. How do you feel about uncertainty? How does it make you feel inside? When you think about uncertainty, what is the trigger inside you? For 23 years, I was a high profile dating coach. I had a thriving business. I had the certainty that people needed my services. Then one day, I woke up and I realized that I was no longer stimulated by what I was doing. I was growing and my customers were still wanting the same thing I always gave them. I knew that there was another path out there for me, another journey for me to explore. This is when trading called me.
I memorized a couple of patterns, paper traded like a champion and instituted unrealistic expectations. I looked for systems that gave me certainty in an uncertain field. I was a paper trading champion. I could easily do $2000-$3000 dollars a day in paper trading but the second the real money was put on the line, I became anxious and let my emotions take over. I felt as if I was shaking at the knees, terrified and insecure. The uncertainty was painful. It made me feel so many different things. It brought up so many issues that were not yet uncovered in my life.
Fight or flight came kicking in. It seemed as if the voices of my parents during childhood came kicking in. Their doubts and their disapproval came kicking in and all I was doing was looking at charts. I was trying to get an entry that I thought would give me certainty but all those emotions came rushing back. About three years ago, I went to the eye doctor and he told me I had some degeneration in my eyes. I didn’t even know what that was, not a clue. I then went into the perpetual black hole called Google and did not like what I saw. Not only had I been a health nut for the last thirty years but I even had little Larry David moments where I thought “what if something happened” but there I was. I was now trading stocks, which is generally uncertain and I was uncertain whether my eyesight would hold out for the remainder of my life.
I went into a deep dark hole. I no longer felt like looking at charts as much as I did. I felt like each chart I looked at, each back trading session that I did was going to destroy my eyes. My whole life was full of uncertainty. I felt like everything I did and everything I worked on; that I stood for was being thrown back in my face. The uncertainty day by day started grading at me. It started making me feel mortal. I mean, I’m David Wygant, I can do anything. That was always my motto. I can succeed in any career and here I was in an uncertain field with uncertain health issues. I couldn’t believe it. I felt like I was repeating my parents life, I felt like I was repeating what my mom and dad were all about, health issues. I needed certainty.
As each day passed, I became more and more upset but then I realized everything happens for us. As long as I can deal with the uncertainty and put a system in place. The work i was doing on my eyes, from the acupuncture. Eating great. The electrical stimulation. The red light therapy, you name it, it’s a system. With a system, I can at least say I am certain of an uncertain thing. I could still preserve my eyesight and had a beautiful, clear vision for the remainder of my life. Were there moments of doubt that still popped up? Yes. Many of them but i have no choice but to move on even after scary moments like carpet breathing
I had to ask Dr. Kim, “hey man, how comes carpets movie.You have to me, because it’s the pattern. I took a deep breath, felt a little nauseous and then I looked at it again and again and after I concentrated, I realized it’s alright. It was like the striped shirt that moved in December. It doesn’t happen at all. It’s got to be the acupuncture, it’s got to be the treatment and I was fine. So how does this relate to trading? How does it relate to you? Life is uncertain. You have no idea if you’re going to go to the doctor tomorrow and find out you have third stage cancer. You have no idea if you are going to drive down the street and get hit by a car. You have no idea of anything so try to embrace the uncertainty. The only way to do that is to have a trading system. What is your system? What are your go to trades that will show up every single day? The question is, when you feel and see those trades do you act or do you just continue to wait. To be certain, there is no certainty in life. So if you can’t handle certainty, you can handle life because there is no certainty in life and the real reason, if you can’t handle uncertainty, then you can’t handle training and can’t really handle your life as a trader
I hope to see you in my Monday Night Mental Toughness Group Zoom calls
