{"id":56,"date":"2025-01-23T16:26:40","date_gmt":"2025-01-23T08:26:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.egobusted.com\/?p=56"},"modified":"2025-03-17T17:21:45","modified_gmt":"2025-03-17T09:21:45","slug":"life-gamble-trading","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.egobusted.com\/en\/life-gamble-trading\/","title":{"rendered":"\u4eba\u751f\u662f\u4e00\u5834\u8ced\u5c40\uff0c\u4ea4\u6613\u4e5f\u662f"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\"><blockquote><p>Life is a gamble. You can get hurt, but people die in plane crashes, lose their arms and legs in car accidents; people die every day. Same with fighters: some die, some get hurt, some go on. You just don&#8217;t let yourself believe it will happen to you.<\/p><cite>Muhammad Ali<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Future is fascinating because it is unknown to every one. Every decisions, no matter big or small, can lead to very different outcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These are obviously known as gambling to most people:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Buying lottery.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Playing casino games.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>However, IMO, these are also gambles by nature:\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Joining a company as an employee without aims.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Creating a startup company.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Implementing a marketing plan.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Playing poker.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Equity Trading.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>\u00a0I personally classify these as investments:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Learning and equipping yourself for the future.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Devoting yourself to a clear career path.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Many people think trading is an investment, but in reality, it's much closer to gambling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u00a0This article is something I wrote years ago. Back then, I found an incredibly well-written piece, but it's since disappeared. I managed to recover it through the Internet Archive. The author is Scott Andrew Bell. Here's the full text:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/iheartwallstreet.com\/2012\/03\/13\/life-is-a-gamble-are-you-all-in\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/iheartwallstreet.com\/2012\/03\/13\/life-is-a-gamble-are-you-all-in\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"life-is-a-gamble-are-you-all-in\"><a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20170629233328\/http:\/\/iheartwallstreet.com\/2012\/03\/13\/life-is-a-gamble-are-you-all-in\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Life Is A Gamble, Are You All-In?<\/a><\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m not a great poker player, but I love the game. Texas Hold \u2018Em, please.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The thing I love most about Hold \u2019em? Honestly, it\u2019s people watching through all of it. The shuffle. The cut. The deal. That first read of the cards. And, of course, the plays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>All those faces at the table through each stage. And, of course, the cussin\u2019 smokin\u2019 &amp; drinkin\u2019 is fun too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For those who know James Altucher, you know his relentless determination <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20170629233328\/http:\/\/www.jamesaltucher.com\/2011\/03\/the-year-i-did-nothing-but-play-poker\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>playing poker everyday for a year<\/strong><\/a> is part hero\/part tragedy: the flawed hero. Part dogged obsession. Part \u2018avoid the reality of his life\u2019. Part zen. You empathize, despise, and worship him all at once like you would with any riddle wrapped in an enigma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But like with anything, you have to know your limits. And James did. He wanted to live differently, so he did. He walked away from the game. He saw the cost &amp; benefit to his life and made a change. No matter what had happened up to that point to keep him coming back, it was no longer enough. And James will tell you the first lesson before you start down the road of fortune and fame on the poker tables: you never walk into a room to \u201cget noticed\u201d, unless you\u2019re ready to play a real game \u2014 or look like an idiot losing your money. No, you walk into the room ready to play the game. Your game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I just finished Josh Brown\u2019s book, <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20170629233328\/http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Backstage-Wall-Street-Insider-2019s-Investments\/dp\/007178232X\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Backstage Wall Street<\/strong><\/a>. Now, you want to see someone go All-In? I gotta tell you, he did it in this book. He\u2019s found some truly great nuggets of Wall Street history among a field of books that have been panning that mine for years. Like, the YMCA roommates who met just before they started one of the largest firms on Wall Street. Or how integral Chuck Schwab\u2019s uncle was to creating the firm that changed the face of Wall Street.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Josh\u2019s fantastic wordsmithery &amp; storytelling live on in book form, even if his editor probably did make him cut out a ton of stuff. In his breathless book, he talks about \u201cThe Pitch\u201d. And it was like I was sitting at the desk next to him. All of the days we hammered the phones 6 days a week. 300 dials a day. Anyone who didn\u2019t, didn\u2019t make it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When I called you, I didn\u2019t want to make a sale \u2014 all I wanted was a cup of coffee, preferably with you. If I did convince you 20 minutes and a cup of coffee was worth your time, it was 90% likely you\u2019d become a client. That was my stat. 9 out of 10 approved upon meeting me. Not 100%. 90%. I wasn\u2019t really selling anything but the truth, or the half-truths I\u2019d been fed to that point in my career. I never claimed to beat the market by a mile or have a new system to make money in \u201cany market\u201d. I also didn\u2019t grab the attention of people with $20 million because I was never allocated any of the hot IPOs, the currency of the dotcom era \u2014 as it turned out, by the time I was in the game the players were already on the field &amp; it was the 9th inning. Some twisted fate to start in August of 2000, I suppose. But that wasn\u2019t the reason I wasn\u2019t a \u2018breakout\u2019 success \u2014 because I couldn\u2019t lie or sell the promise of a better tomorrow with sizzling returns. It wasn\u2019t my timing \u2014 It was something else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The 10%<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20170629233328\/http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pareto_principle\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>The Pareto Principle<\/strong><\/a>, quoted by every Wall Street branch manager who half-read some inspirational sales book, tells us about the 80\/20 rule. Basically, focus on the 20% to make big changes. But I think if you really want to be great, you\u2019re better off focusing on the 10% holding you back. Not that they\u2019re necessarily your weaknesses. They\u2019re actually probably strengths that you\u2019ve just underutilized, or worse, ignored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some of my 10% was because I was on the wrong side of the table which Josh does a really great job at illustrating in his book. See, in the game of Wall Street \u2014 the house always wins and in their casino your broker is a lowly dealer. And when I wasn\u2019t dealing, I was taking my earnings &amp; sitting at the same table with the rest of the fish.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you really think about it, in the face of today and everything you know, investing, in its most basic element, is nothing more than \u201cbetting\u201d that someday tomorrow is going to be better; Or not. For a company, an asset class, an economy, or chart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I hate the gambling\/investing analogy because this isn\u2019t a trivial card game but let\u2019s face it, investing in the market really is legalized gambling, isn\u2019t it? Maybe it\u2019s a chart formation, or some really out-of-whack run on the table that has left utilities out in the cold &amp; now they\u2019re \u201cdue\u201d. Or the fundamentals, oh the fundamentals with hundreds of analysts culling spreadsheets. Or maybe it\u2019s that Apple will continue to reinvent the world in a way that only Apple can; And that we\u2019ll continue to love their vision\u2026 no matter what your reasoning for sitting at the table, you\u2019re thinking (hoping) that your next hand will be the winner. Now if that\u2019s not gambling, what is?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even you index fund investors, you\u2019re betting. Sure, you\u2019re sipping on your diet Pepsi like grandma at the nickel slots\u2013 but you\u2019re there. You\u2019re betting that 20 years from now there will be more people, buying more stuff, that there\u2019ll be more food on the buffet, more electricity, more, more, more. Instead of taking that vacation today or seeing what life outside of the casino may bring you. You\u2019re just betting on the whole lot of us, whether its companies knowingly poisoning rivers &amp; streams because the fines are cheaper than the revenue or investing in companies truly succeeding while doing the \u201cright thing\u201d \u2014 you\u2019re betting on all of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the end, I realized, we realized (Josh &amp; I) \u2014 and hopefully your broker &amp; you, that we are the fish at the table. And just like the fish hitting up the ATM \u201cjust one more time\u201d, investors keep coming back for more. Because Wall Street is like James Altucher, part hero\/part tragedy. Part obsession with \u201cmore\u201d &amp; \u201cbetter\u201d. Partly avoiding the reality of how little value there probably will be from the next move on the crowded table. And, of course, the zen-like constant nature of it all. The Too Big To Fail Banks will keep spending mountains of <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20170629233328\/http:\/\/www.google.com\/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=2&amp;cts=1331610716214&amp;ved=0CDUQFjAB&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fiheartwallstreet.com%2F2011%2F03%2F13%2Fdance-of-the-tchotchkes%2F&amp;ei=WcReT67MKsa0iQL18f3dBA&amp;usg=AFQjCNEaX5tcB8LNTbAGadFL9NDIv6uOSA&amp;sig2=JCPQVeYhWKLkRwIuPgS6UQ\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>marketing dollars on useless tchotchkes<\/strong><\/a> and advertising to keep you believing in the dream that you can beat Vegas at its own game. You can\u2019t blame the dealer. Or the people in the pit. Or even the people at the table. That 10% is the house\u2019s \u2014 always will be. It\u2019s best just to walk away from that table, even though, now, the insight is valuable, in the end the cost is still too high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>My 10%<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, I walked away. But the real reason I\u2019ve been a 90% success resonated with me a couple of nights ago; It\u2019s not because I can\u2019t get 100% of the people to like me or trust me, or see the value I bring. Even if I did become Mr. 100%, that\u2019s not the stat that actually matters in the larger scheme of things. The reason I\u2019ve always been Mr. 90% is because I\u2019ve always held back. And it\u2019s worked for me. Or I should say, I\u2019ve held back 90% of the time. I don\u2019t get too excited or sad about anything \u2014 I won\u2019t allow myself to. I didn\u2019t get too excited about my wedding, or any of my graduations, or making Eagle Scout \u2014 or the birth of either of my two sons. If I win the game, there\u2019s the next game. Or if I have a good day or year, I remind myself that the next deal could be the perfect storm. So, you hold back. You manage your pile of cash according to what you think you have in your hand. And even through my success, I\u2019ve always played my hands like I\u2019m the short stack at the table \u2014 always on the defense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Don\u2019t get me wrong \u2014 I\u2019ve been the hero of games, won the heart of the \u201cthe girl\u201d, even fought men twice my size \u2014 but those all-in moments over my adult life have started to blur into days and months, and even years, of going through the motions, betting another small hand just to see the cards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When I was a kid, I was always all-in. You might have been too, you rebel. Testosterone &amp; hormones have a tendency to tap into that vein very well. It\u2019s easier when you have \u201cnothing\u201d to lose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, in my young adult life I worked more than any of them. I read more than all of them. \u201cFinancial success will be mine, and I will be at this table everyday until I achieve it.\u201d And then you realize, avoiding life while chasing the cards for financial success just isn\u2019t what I want anymore as a real grown-up. I\u2019m married. I want a loving relationship with my kids. Sure, I have a mortgage to pay but I can\u2019t f#ck people over, I just can\u2019t \u2014 sorry. And I can\u2019t afford to lose clients money with big bets or mistakes or wrong calls. And then the firm makes those big bets, mistakes, and wrong calls \u2014 nearly \u2018killing\u2019 all of us. And then changes the rules again. And again. And again. Always winning. So, you start to hold back, more and more with each hand. Anything to keep playing the game, without losing the stack or your somehow revered seat at the table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And here I am 12 years later. Still doing it. Still managing the stack, in someways, like I\u2019m still a 20-something. Afraid to open up the emotional and financial pursestrings &amp; start making some sizable bets. Whether on myself or the firm I started when I left Wall Street\u2019s table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But there\u2019s been a couple of slaps in my face to \u201cwake up\u201d lately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>First, my oldest son will be 6 years old next month, and last week just got his first $2 bill during the tooth fairy\u2019s second visit to his pillow. There\u2019s a third tooth wiggling already. He asks me about the stock market and can read my poker face, knowing when it\u2019s been a tough day (or a good day lately). I show him his market reports. Green is good, he\u2019s known this to be the truth since he was 3. He knows what he owns and thinks that robots vacuuming our floors is just the beginning. He\u2019s betting on a better tomorrow twenty years from now. He\u2019s starting to save his money instead of spending it all at the candy store. He asks me about the homeless people we walk past. It\u2019s my chance to teach him about things, real things. Not just the ABCs anymore. holy shit. I\u2019m a dad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019ve coached his teams, taken him camping, gone through the motions of what a good dad should do \u2014 but never truly enjoying the hand I\u2019ve been dealt. Too afraid of what tomorrow may bring: sickness, some terrible unforeseen accident, that he\u2019ll be \u201cdifferent\u201d or that my kid will hate me because I gave him bad advice. So, I\u2019ve been holding back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then two weeks ago on a Wednesday, I woke up with a twinge in my shoulder. \u201d I must have slept on it wrong\u201d. By Friday at 6pm, I literally was not able to move my arm from my side. The doctor was worried it would \u201clock up\u201d. I don\u2019t know what that actually meant or how\/if it could be fixed if it did. All the doctor said was, \u201cif that happenings, it would not be good.\u201d She looked concerned. Am I that fragile?! I didn\u2019t even do anything except tap on my keyboard and click a mouse for 80 hours last week. How did this happen?!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>How it happened is I\u2019ve been working 14 hours a day for 12 years. Too driven to rest, too afraid to stop. To listen to my body \u2014 The same body which is also now 25 lbs. heavier than when I met my wife. I keep putting off today for the promise of tomorrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And ultimately for the last three years I\u2019ve spend almost everything in my heart &amp; soul on the firm I started. And here I am, 90% done with something that for better or worse has taken me three years to build; Over budget \u2014 late five (self-induced) deadlines ago. Probably at too much personal cost, too afraid to see what happens when I play my hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Too afraid to go All-In.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When I talk to my old friends who are still at the old Wall Street firm, they always say the same thing \u2013\u201cYou had guts, you did it, you left the table. I could never do what you did\u201d. And the truth is they could, some might. James Altucher did. Josh Brown did. And you could too. You could tackle your 10%. Some have a worse hand, others better. But the hardest part about making your next move isn\u2019t laying down your cards \u2014 it\u2019s accepting what\u2019s on the other side of that bet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, after looking at everything \u2014 my life, my kids, my wife , my firm \u2014 the reality of it all. I\u2019ve decided something: it\u2019s time to start making some bigger bets. Lay down the other 10%. Lay down my fears. Life is a gamble. I\u2019m not that 20-something who had something to prove when he walked in the room \u2014 he wanted to be seen. He wanted to make his mark. But that\u2019s not me anymore. I don\u2019t need to be seen, or even win. Now, I just want to play the game; my game. With everything I\u2019ve got.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m All-In.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"and-read\"><strong>And read:<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"backstage-wall-street\"><a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20170629233328\/http:\/\/www.thereformedbroker.com\/2012\/03\/12\/backstage-wall-street-chapter-list\/#comments#disqus_thread\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Backstage Wall Street<\/strong><\/a><\/h3>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Life is a gamble. You can get hurt, but people die in p [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":525,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ramblings"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.egobusted.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.egobusted.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.egobusted.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.egobusted.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.egobusted.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.egobusted.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":527,"href":"https:\/\/www.egobusted.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions\/527"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.egobusted.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.egobusted.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.egobusted.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.egobusted.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}