Line Your Own Pockets

Michael: 00:00

Alright, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Line Your Own Pockets. We're going over another kind of post that Dave put out, but on one that he got a question behind, and it was talking about how the discipline to follow a strategy. Right? We're talking all the time about building testing strategies and and the importance of being systematic and and just doing whatever your strategy is saying.

Michael: 00:25

And this this user, and Dave will go into more detail, was just talking about how, you know, how he's overwriting his strategy all the time. And I think Dave came up with a pretty clever way to kinda do a little judo on that and maybe turn that into a good thing. And this actually came from, I believe, when I read the post, I sent Dave a message and said, oh, this is this guy was talking to me, so why don't you go a little bit over what the person was telling to you and I'll go over why I thought it was talking a lot to me.

Dave: 00:55

Okay. So this comes from one of the traders that I coached and I've coached for a long time. He when he came to me, he was a losing trader. And when I looked at his results and we looked at him together, it was pretty clear that he had a lot more potential than he realized because there were a few mistakes he was making. Really, there were really only a few trades that were causing the losses.

Dave: 01:30

And it became really clear to me just at first glance, okay. This is somebody who could be a lot better. And so we went down that path. We eliminated the mistakes, That takes some time. I mean, once once you have habits ingrained, it takes a little bit of time to undo those habits.

Dave: 01:51

And, like, the most egregious ones, we got rid of pretty quickly. But then there was this one habit that he had of, you know, he was he had these systems. He had several systems. He was making money. But every so often, he would override the system.

Dave: 02:12

He would look at something in the market and talk himself out of the trade. He would exit the trade too soon. Just and it it was clear that it was a habit. And on our calls, the the discussion was all about, okay. Well, how do you get more discipline?

Dave: 02:34

Right? And this is what he thought the problem was. I just need to be more disciplined. And after a couple calls like this, I was like, man, this is it it's it's really clear from your results that if you hadn't done this, you would be better. Mhmm.

Dave: 02:51

So he was tracking that. It was very clear that like, there was no question that and he knew it. He there was no question in his mind that if he stopped doing this, his results were gonna be better.

Michael: 03:03

Well, let's talk a little bit first about the about the bad trades. Right? So were these just complete rogue trades, or were they little things like you were talking about before of of taking profits too early or something like that? Like, was he like, was it were were were the trades based off the strategy, and he was just kind of, you know, feeling fear, greed inside the trade, or was it just every now and then he would just, like, triple up on size or take something that had nothing to do with the plan at all?

Dave: 03:34

Right. Good question. He was getting in trades according to the system, but then overriding them somehow. Getting out too early from fear or Mhmm. You know, he sees he sees the price approaching his stop, and he's like, well, I'm sure this is gonna stop out.

Dave: 03:54

Let me just save a few bucks here and get out early. Right? Of course, it continues. That's why you have to stop there, and that's why it's placed at the area where you've designed it. Exactly that.

Dave: 04:05

So most most of his problems

Michael: 04:07

most of his problems were were not again, he had plan a, and then he was just doing random stuff. It was almost like he would be better not being there after after he took the trade. Right? He was interfering in the actual trade itself. Yes.

Michael: 04:24

That's absolutely true. Yeah. Yeah. And that cause I I think there's always two when when people are going off plan, though those are usually the two options, right, is one is they've they've waited for the setup and they've done all that patiently and they've done all that right and they've taken the setup. And then now that there's money on the line and things are ticking up and down, emotions get into play.

Michael: 04:47

And then I think the other thing that that's super common is people just they have plan a, and then they're just doing something else over there for, you know, either boredom because there's no trades that are setting up or or whatever it ends up being, they're ended up doing doing something else. So, in this case, at least, it was. And maybe we'll do another episode of the whole I'm just taking trades because I'm bored or whatever. It could be another episode. So just so we're focusing focused on that.

Michael: 05:14

So, when you guys determine that and said, okay, this is what's going on, let's just slow down and say, you know, what's kinda step one of to say, hey. You know, if if you if you weren't basically, your system works better if you're not there at all. So what do we have to do to to kinda get you moving in that in that direction?

Dave: 05:34

Yeah. So I just wanna tease what we're gonna get to in a few minutes, which is we turned this into an advantage.

Michael: 05:41

Mhmm.

Dave: 05:41

So that's really what turned this trader around and really became he he just got a lot better and is continuing to get better and is really fun and awesome. But he started off in this situation, and there were some steps we did at the beginning to track down and and keep track of grades where he was overriding the system, like, to make it clear to him in his journal what was going on. And and then the real ramifications of overriding is, like, sometimes it would work. Right? He would save a few bucks before the stock got hit.

Dave: 06:18

Right?

Michael: 06:19

I and I think that's the the biggest problem, not just with with this, but with all kinds of kind of random or discretionary either trades or interventions on the trades. That's sometimes it works. And it it, you know, the the biggest example I always give is like averaging down. Right? So, you know, you bought a stock at ten because you liked it, and this is just purely, you know, not about systematic, but discretionary guys.

Michael: 06:42

And then you wake up the next morning and bad news came out and got caught cut down to five. So you you you have you double you double down. And the problem is with doubling down like that, mathematically, a lot of times it's gonna work out, right? The whole Martingale thing. Just mathematically, it's going to work a lot of the times.

Michael: 06:59

One or two times it doesn't, you're done. So it's not. And it's the same thing with intervening with your plan. You know, you're looking at the stock and you're saying, yeah, you know, it's got maybe 20¢ to my profit target, but, you know, I I've it's put in a topping tail or whatever you use to sell yourself. I'm gonna get out right here, and then you get out right there.

Michael: 07:21

And then even if the how the human brain works is you'll remember all the times that it worked, and that will convince you that that ends up being a good idea. And and if you have the numbers in front of you, turns out it's probably not.

Dave: 07:36

Yeah. It's very common. I mean, when you we've talked about it before. The the most dangerous mistakes are the ones where you make money. Yeah.

Dave: 07:44

Because it just ingrains the habit. You you think you're smarter than everybody else. You think you're smarter than the system, and turns out you're not. So so, yeah, that that so the first thing we did here was we came up with a strategy for assigning a certain tag for the these trades where he was doing an override. So we called it mistake or override, some way to identify in your journal.

Dave: 08:13

And, again, we've we've talked about journals before on here.

Michael: 08:15

Yep.

Dave: 08:16

And what I mean by that is not a diary. Right? This is what I mean here is a database of your trades. Mhmm. A way to go back and very quickly see what are the best trades you took, what are the worst trades, and and to to view performance by tag.

Dave: 08:35

Mhmm. So you can see performance across strategy, and you could isolate your mistake trades, which is what we did. So that usually works really well because it's it's one thing in the moment you think, okay, you might be right this time. Sometimes you are. But when you look at it in black and white where you've you've kept track of this, you've got it in aggregate, you've been tracking it over a period of time, you start to see these trades stack up, and you can see an aggregate that, wow, okay, it doesn't work very well when I override the system.

Michael: 09:13

Mhmm.

Dave: 09:14

Usually, that becomes very clear, and it's very motivating to see that. Like, all of sudden, you start adding up, okay. Well, here's the look how much profit I missed out on. What could I buy with that? Right?

Dave: 09:25

Like, that's it becomes real then.

Michael: 09:28

Yeah. Well, I think it also shows because generally speaking, it's less work too. Right? So we're not talking about to make more money, you have to do more stuff. So I I find what's very freeing about is you're like, if I didn't do this, this, and this, if I did less, then, you know, it it for me, because my whole thing is a lot to do with before I got really systematic, was overtrading.

Michael: 09:54

Right? It was, you know, trying to find, again, the the pictures in the clouds and that type of thing before I really got serious about the data and all of that. And, what you end up doing is when I was going through the trades, it was like, man, if I just if I just did less, if I just waited for my system to print, you know, maybe even as a swing trader, and this actually happened last week, there was no trades. There's nothing. Nothing nothing happened.

Michael: 10:21

And and old me would be like, okay. Well, I have to trade, and I have to do something. And and the new me read, five or six academic papers and a couple books and, like, did a bunch of unrelated stuff. So, yeah, it's not only that you see the actual financial dollar amount, but you also generally see that it's not about doing more work that ends up making you the more money, it's it's about doing less, like, don't touch the button when it gets close to your stop or your target or something like that, which is hilarious because I think that's what gets people a lot with trading is that's opposite to everything else in the world where more pressure and more work and and everything is is better.

Dave: 11:01

Yeah. And usually you usually, it's traders that don't have a very good process for backtesting or they don't have a lot of experience. They they feel like they need to be doing something. If you've got a good process for evaluating your ideas, for backtesting, it becomes a lot easier because you see like, you you can see the results ahead of time for exactly the the the what you described, which is patience pays. Right?

Dave: 11:31

Mhmm. And it becomes a lot easier to have confidence to do that when you have a plan and you and you've seen that in black and white and, you know, the data is, you know, smacking you in the face telling you that it's a lot easier to do. If you don't have that, then, yeah, your tendency is gonna be to overtrade, to be a try hard, you know, to to do stuff that you shouldn't be doing.

Michael: 11:57

Yeah. And and and, you know, not to just because these episodes, ever dreamed not to date them too much, but, you know, we're in a crazy market, and that's why the system was not doing anything. And it was one of those things where, again, the old me would say, oh, you know, this market's very volatile. I I have to end up doing things. And that those things would mean trades.

Michael: 12:22

But now when you have, like you talked about a system and a process, now for me, it's let me test new strategies and maybe I should be doing some more day trading or some more shorter term. And it goes to the point that the we talk about this all the time, is the actual act of trading should be a very small percentage of the work of trading. Right? Most of the trading should be, okay. There's there's nothing for me to do now.

Michael: 12:46

It's not like I just napped all day. It's okay. Now let me look at new ideas and and come up with new ideas and experiment with new time frames and and and do that because then when there's times that there are a lot of trades, well, that's the time to lock in and and to focus. But because you systematize it, even then you don't have a lot of work to do there.

Dave: 13:05

Yeah. I remember earlier in my career being really frustrated at the slow times. But as time goes on, you really learn to appreciate those times because just like you mentioned, there's it gives you some room to to mull over new ideas, to test new ideas without sort of the, you know, quote unquote distractions of your current ideas. So it's really you come to appreciate that, and it's it's it's good to sort of plan for that and, you know, follow the ebbs and flows of the market and, you know, respond to it accordingly like you like you've done. Yep.

Dave: 13:49

So to back to this trader, so we we came up with this process. He's tracking his his overall system. He's categorizing the ones that he does this override thing with. And it wasn't the same thing every time. It was different stuff.

Dave: 14:06

Right? So you can think about his the set of his trades for a particular strategy. Some of those trades are gonna have the override tag. So you can see in black and white in your journal, okay, well, the ones with the override tag, occasionally, you would get one that was better. But, overall, these things are performing worse than so it it was very clear, and he knew it.

Dave: 14:32

He it was very clear that if he just didn't override his system, he would do better. And yet he still did it. Right? And that was a frustrating thing for him. And Mhmm.

Dave: 14:50

There were a couple calls in a row where it felt like we were having the same conversation, And that's where that's where it finally dawned on me, this idea that we'll get ready to talk about, but I want you to Yeah. So so

Michael: 15:04

the fact that it's different things, like, that's what stood out to me on on on that statement, right? She's saying it's different every time. So, you know, the not to get all Doctor. Phil on them, but it seems like there's kind of an underlying when I hear that, if I was mentoring the traders saying, well, there's something there's something else going on because if it was always, you know, I move my stop. Right?

Michael: 15:27

Like, the you know, my stop is here, and and when the price gets close, I go, oh, you know, I'm just gonna move it down a little bit, and then and then maybe it'll work out. If it's something consistent like that, you go, okay. Well, you're you have some sort of fear of loss. Right? And you've you don't like me.

Michael: 15:41

But when it's different things, and that actually that to me makes it harder and more interesting. So I'll be interested to hear what you came up with to Yeah. Help out because the more sporadic the person's if the guy is just overtrading, then I'm like, okay. Well, then that's a problem if it's if it's just one of these things, but it seems like there was actually quite a few going on.

Dave: 16:00

Yeah. So, you know, you can imagine how I felt here when this is the second call. I'm like, gosh. I mean, I've done every I felt like, man, I could I've done everything I can to help him. I'm not sure why you know, what's going on here.

Dave: 16:17

So I was like, well, let's dig into an example here. I I wanna hear exactly your thought process in the middle of this trade, why you decided to override, like, what was going on through your head? And let's just talk about that and see, you know, may maybe there's some ideas that come from it. So I had him walk through the like, one of the most recent examples of this. And I I I don't remember the specifics, but what stuck out what stuck out at me was this was not just an off the cuff thing that, okay.

Dave: 16:59

I was scared, so I did this. Or, you know, it was close, so I just, you know, I just bailed. Like, it wasn't it was obvious that it was not a a really simple thing based on an emotion like that. It was actually a pretty well thought out idea. Like, it was it was pretty advanced, and there were some seeds there of real improvements to the strategy, potentially.

Dave: 17:32

Not everyone, but there were I could see that it was very clear that there were there were some pretty good ideas here that he had. And it struck me that this is this lack of, you know, quote, unquote, lack of self discipline was actually a source, a potential source for new ideas to improve this strategy, but also potentially seeds for a new strategy on their own.

Michael: 18:04

So his answers weren't I was worried of or I was scared of or whatever. It was there was some sort of technical, you know, I saw this on the chart, this, you know, this pattern or this indicator or whatever was telling me to potentially get out. So what you did is you took there and said, okay, so it's not really it's it's always a mental problem, but it's not a huge it's not just I'm afraid, so I hit the button. It was very much a there was a reason to do it. So then I think I can guess your answer next, which is, Okay, well, if, you know, that indicator told you that it was probably time to get out now as opposed to waiting for for your target or your stop.

Michael: 18:46

Test it. Right? Is that the

Dave: 18:48

So so this is this is what we did. So I realized, okay. This is actually these mistakes are a good thing. It's a good thing you're making these mistakes. Right?

Dave: 18:58

So we turned this negative into a positive, and here's here's how we did it. So we made an agreement that you're not gonna override the system. What you're gonna do instead is when you feel the urge to override the system, you're not going to, but what you are gonna do is take copious notes about why you want to override the system, what your thought process is, put that in a Google Doc or somewhere where you can clearly look at these ideas and then go back and test it after hours. So you're not allowed to override it unless you go and actually test it and figure out a way to do that across a large number of your trades. So we got that in place, and pretty quickly, like, it it immediately resonated with him, and it became this engine for new ideas.

Dave: 20:04

I mean, that's a big part of know, I see a lot of traders that have one system that they trade, and it's really hard to get to that second system. And the reason is it's really a lack of ideas. And anytime you can generate a list, a workflow to generate ideas for you to test, that is gonna be a way for you to stay in this game longer and to and to give you the ability to adapt over time. And the ability to do adapt over time is what makes good traders great. That's how you're gonna stay in the game, and that's how and it's a lot more fun.

Dave: 20:54

But it does take it it it takes that's a phase you have to get through to get to the point where you can generate ideas on an ongoing basis.

Michael: 21:05

Yeah. And, you know, we chatted about the in the really beginning of the podcast, but ways to generate ideas. And that was one of one of the big ways that we talked about where make sure that you're observing what's happening and you're taking notes about what's happening. And some of your trades again may lead to two different trades. And I think, again, without going too much into the psychological thing, I think the other thing that you end up doing for him is giving him an outlet.

Michael: 21:35

Outlet. Right? So if there was a, you know, feelings of kind of anxiety or whatever, as opposed to channeling them into stepping up with the system, he's now channeling them into taking these notes, then eventually, if he has enough notes, they're gonna trigger ideas for improvements to the existing strategy or new strategy. It's like, every time I see this indicator happen, my my long strategy ends up getting, you know, stopped out. It's like, okay, well, maybe test if you see that indicator happening, what happens to the to the short side of things?

Michael: 22:12

And again, it's one of those that I think it's 100% the right direction because I've done a lot of the same things and actually recently with not trades that I was interfering with, but trades that I was missing. And it was a, you know, me just kind of looking at the signal coming in and saying, I'm not too interested in this trade. And then they end up being great. So what I decided to do is okay for each of those that I don't want to take, just because I'm not comfortable with it, I probably still won't take them, but I'm going to document them and write and document all of them and write and take screenshots of the charts and do all that stuff so that you can go and and check that later. Because you're right, it's the more you're absorbing from different places than than the better.

Michael: 22:55

Yeah, I think the biggest thing too is that, you know, that may be less quantifiable is that outlet. You've given them something now to Yeah. To spend that energy doing. So, you know, even if he's right and, you know, the the stock went 10¢ to his take profit target, and then it reversed and stopped him out. Instead of feeling mad about that, it's kind of redirected into, okay, you know, is is there something that you know, was that just a fluke in the randomness of the market, Or is there really something here that I can look through that chart and explore what would happen and potentially come up with a way to do it?

Michael: 23:31

Then lastly, I think testing it on a lot of things is very important. You know, we talk about this all the time that people are obsessed with perfect, right? They're obsessed with why did this trade not work out? But most of the time, it's just because your strategy's probably got a 60% win rate and half of all the trades won't work out. But if you feel the need to intervene, then yeah, prove it to yourself that doing that over, you know, a wide variety of trades is is really gonna make the difference.

Dave: 24:01

Yeah. Yeah. And think about the mindset you're in when you override the system and then you see that it doesn't work out or you you realize that you've overridden it and you're sort of beating yourself off about it. Compare that to an agreement, not to override, but to take copious notes about what you would be doing, what you felt like you wanted to do, what your intuition was telling you to do. That's a completely different mindset.

Dave: 24:31

That second one is a lot more productive. Right? Your your mindset is gonna be open. You're you're gonna be you're you're gonna be examining this. You're like a you're like a neutral observer of your trades rather than, ah, you know, here I go again, you know, my lack of discipline.

Dave: 24:52

So it's a it's a very different mindset, and it's it's it seems probably a little bit subtle, but it can be very powerful.

Michael: 25:00

Well, it's funny, and I don't know if I mentioned this here or somewhere else before, but I do. I have a note on my desktop that I look at every day that just says you're you're not trading, you're gathering data. And that's the same kind of thing to remind myself that the the individual day or the individual trade doesn't really matter as long as I've gathered data that I can then apply to kind of the next thing. It's to do the same thing. It's to make myself less active and more observing the trades.

Michael: 25:31

Right? And I think this is one of the main main benefits of systematic trading and and more importantly, auto trading, like having the system actually take the trades for you is there's a level of, unattachment to them. Right? You're sitting there and it's a strategy you've come up with, but the trades are just entering your blotter and and you're just checking out to make sure that everything's working okay. But at the same time, you're able to sit there and you're able to look through the trades and and watch the trades happen.

Michael: 26:02

And I think there's a lot of power in doing that, because you're, again, you're being an observer. And it's one of those, yes, it's your strategy, but you didn't hit the button to buy that stock. So I think there's just a little level of of disattachment there that you can just say, okay, that was a trade that was made by my strategy as opposed to discretionary traders that do all the research and they hit the trade themselves. And they become way more attached to the outcome of that. Whereas as systematic traders, you go, okay, this is the system has done this, and I am the one in control of the system, but I didn't take that particular trade.

Michael: 26:39

Does that make sense? Like, there's just that level of Yeah. So you can observe it.

Dave: 26:43

I thought about that. It's it's sort of like it's sort of like being a professional baseball player versus being the manager of the team.

Michael: 26:53

Right. Put it. Yeah.

Dave: 26:54

And I I went through this. I wasn't a professional baseball player, but I was a running coach in in high school. So my wife and I coached cross country at the local high school here, and it was you know, some of these kids like, at the time, I could run faster than than these kids. But as I got older, got slower, but it was still it it was a very different experience coaching other runners and now traders to do well. And that's it's a completely different skill set.

Dave: 27:32

And it's a little you reminded me of that with what you said. It's one step removed. So it's a different skill set and it's a completely different experience. And it's it's really a lot of fun to do it that way. And it's to to figure out how to get somebody else to be the the best they can be, that is just that's awesome on.

Michael: 28:02

Well, yeah, I I think I think one of the main benefits of that that disattachment just a little bit is just to show you still get happy when you win and you still get bummed when you lose. But that's, I think, dulled a little bit, and it's replaced with a more curiosity of, what can I do? Like, you know, if you lost the race in that example, you might be really bummed. Those emotions may may cloud your thinking. Or if you won, you may just think, oh, I'm the best in the world or whatever.

Michael: 28:33

Although your coach may see you win and be happy that you won, but may look at it and say, yeah, but, you know, everyone else kinda sucked. That's why you won. Right? I'm not gonna tell you that, but, you know, that that may be or you lost, but these are the and and it it puts you more in the, you know, it dulls the emotion of winning and losing a little bit and then replaces that with a more kind of analytical thought of it's great that you won this one, but I'm old and I'm your coach. I understand that this is just one race and it's the next one.

Michael: 29:02

So while you're riding high on this, I'm gonna be thinking about how to make sure you win the next one and the next one and and the one after that point.

Dave: 29:10

And the other thing to think about here so with cross country, we we haven't talked a lot about it. But to create a great cross country team, you have to create a culture where it's cool to run fast and that you it it's it's by no means is it a collection of individuals. It is very much a team, and you have to get people to buy into that because you will run faster as a team. You will run faster individually if you know other people are counting on you. Will just dig deeper and just there's no question about it.

Dave: 29:48

So creating that culture. And it's kind of the same way with strategy. They can feed off each other. You can learn stuff from strategies to apply to others. So it is sort of a like a general manager mindset when you have multiple strategies because you you're, you know, you're not you're not the baseball player at bat doing the thing.

Dave: 30:11

You're coaching a whole group of players. And the the fact that they giving them the ability to form a team is not easy, but that's really powerful and that that's really where success comes from.

Michael: 30:31

And so yeah. So this this gentleman, he he started documenting it. He started he started to come up with he started he detached himself kind of in the way that we were just talking about there. So what were the results? Did you have to do any other tweaking with him, or or did that kinda just set him on the right path?

Dave: 30:50

There were some tweaks after that, but that that was definitely when he turned the corner. And since then, he had I mean, he's done really well. He has he's trading for a living now. He's Wow. Quit his job.

Dave: 31:07

He's trading for a living. From a

Michael: 31:09

from a loser trader. Right? Just to bring it back to the beginning. Like, he was not he was losing money, and now he's now he's doing it full time. That's a big turnaround.

Dave: 31:18

And where he is now, he wants to get to the next level, and he he will. He doesn't know he doesn't quite believe it yet, but he will. And and I can tell that. And, you know, we've got some plans for him to get there. Not gonna be easy, but I I'm confident he can get there.

Dave: 31:39

What

Michael: 31:41

so is the amount of intervening in trades, did it did it go to zero? Did it get knocked 90%? Like, what was the

Dave: 31:50

Yeah. It went basically to zero, and part of it was this process. Another big part was him automating his trades. He would literally he got to the point where he would enter his trades using a robot, and he would let them play out. And he would he would go and go on about his day.

Dave: 32:14

He wasn't, you know, nailed in front of his monitor where he could override and intervene. Right? So that stuff we talked about before. I mean, I I see that as a common pattern for people improving is automating their trades because all of a sudden, like like I like I tell people, you're never gonna be the best order entry order enterer in the world. Right?

Michael: 32:41

Right. Well, especially nowadays. Right? Yeah. Anyone can hit a button.

Michael: 32:45

You know?

Dave: 32:46

So once you once you make that leap, all of a sudden you're like, wow. Okay. I could make could make a whole I could make, like, five times the number of trades I make if I can figure out a system that that works. I mean, that opens up a whole new set of possibilities that it's just hard to even imagine if you're click trading. So it's it's it's definitely a whole new world opens up to you that you know, especially somebody that's comes from a programming mindset or a technical background.

Dave: 33:21

It's really it resonates with those people specifically pretty well.

Michael: 33:27

Yeah. And I I think, you know, that should be the the ultimate goal for for everyone doing everything. And then, you know, they kinda we've already talked about a lot of the steps to get there. Right? Setting alerts, using advanced order types, things like things that you can put out, you know, the day before, the night, the morning of, or or whatever to get you kind of into that into that mind frame that eventually you're just gonna completely systematize or auto trade the whole thing.

Michael: 33:56

And I like the whole set it and leave. I was actually talking to a trader recently who has a desktop computer that runs his robots for his trades, and then he's got, an iPad for everything else, and that's what he does. He spends the first twenty minutes or so making sure all the orders are kinda making sense, and then leaves the office, and he takes his iPad with him for research and email, whatever. But the whole point is it it's specifically an iPad because he can't trade from

Dave: 34:22

it.

Michael: 34:22

Right? That's why he got that thing. He said, I want a completely different device to do, you know, day to day tasks, emails, and research and whatever that I can't access my system from. So, yeah, if you're someone who's sitting there all day, again, think about that, right? We talk about it all the time.

Michael: 34:39

At the end of the day or the week, it's really a lazy mindset, and I love it of saying, what didn't I have to do today? What didn't I need to be here for? And then, you know, in the world of AI, what could I have had a computer do for me? And then free my brain up to do whatever. Know, we we we've been doing this podcast for a while and I talked about, leaving trade ideas and then same with with Dave there.

Michael: 35:05

And I would say when I left trade ideas, the amount of I have a folder, and can we talk about all this as well, of all the ideas I wanna test. There's maybe two or three things in there when I left. And I just was looking while we were having this conversation. There's 23. So, you know, and then that's I'm obviously testing as I'm going, and that's how long the backlog is created.

Michael: 35:25

So I think that is a great next step, especially for this person because he doesn't have to fight that demon anymore, right? He can now spend his time, his brain is freed up to do other things.

Dave: 35:37

Yeah. A lot a lot of traders will, you know, imagine trading having a robot trade automatically, and they think, gosh, you know, is that gonna is that gonna be fun? I mean, I I don't like doing it. Right? Like, it's but you know what's a lot more fun?

Dave: 35:57

Coming back from a bike ride and having made a lot of money from something automatically. That's fun. Yeah. So

Michael: 36:05

and that's that's what you

Dave: 36:07

can get to.

Michael: 36:08

You know, for and and for me, it's one of those things. I've I've documented my whole trading journal on my YouTube. I'm posting since way if you go back on my I had to delete some because they were so embarrassing because I was like 20 when I started, they were just so stupid. But for me, I think it it really was having kids to and the same kind of thing. It's like you start to look at your life and you're saying, I do I want to sit here fourteen hours a day and and punch every order and to do everything?

Michael: 36:38

And or do I want to to do that kind of thing that's freeing? So, yeah, think about that. And and again, I I think the fun gets replaced. Right? It's the difference again between being the guy on the field playing and then being the manager watching the it's a different kind of fun, but it's still a lot of fun.

Michael: 36:55

Right? And and if you enjoy the exploratory aspect of trading where you're thinking of new ideas and testing them and do all that, then this is really for you. If if your whole joy is hitting a button and being right and then selling, then it's like, I don't even know if trading is for you at that point because I think you're driving joy from the wrong thing, and that's the the feeling of being correct and kind of the dopamine hit of trading as opposed to the the the long term being right and and making money from it.

Dave: 37:27

Yeah. Yeah. It's it's definitely a different mindset. And, yeah, I mean, the traders that are in it for a short amount of time are the ones that, you know, get off on the dopamine hit of of that, and it it requires a different mindset to be to be successful in the long run.

Michael: 37:52

So what's this guy buying? One of our last episodes was what what do you buy with your you know, to make it real for you. Do you do you have any suggestions or do you figure it out himself?

Dave: 38:03

This was this was the one that got the Aaron chairs. Got two Aaron s chairs. So he's he's you know, every time he sits down, he realizes that, you know, he he's reminded that, hey. My trading bought me this chair. Mhmm.

Dave: 38:18

These two chairs. And so he's that's really cool.

Michael: 38:22

That's cool. So, no, I think that was a great one because I think there's a lot of people who who I guarantee you, there'll be comments of, yep, because like I like I mentioned before, one of the reasons we decided to do this one is because Dave sent out the email and I just responded, in our little messaging app. I said, yep, that that, you know, you were talking to me there because I would do the same thing, right? You think you know something. So I think that was great.

Michael: 38:46

So another great episode in the books. I hope people found value. You know, if you did, certainly let us know. And until next time, I'm Michael Noss.

Dave: 38:56

And I'm Dave May. We'll talk to you next week. Go online your own pockets.