Hello October!!

We've got a new baby in the family, born on the full super blue moon day. So thrilled and in love with the little boy. 

It's time for new beginnings all around.

What I've Learned

After opening (and blowing) 20+ PA accounts with Apex over the past few months. I finally had a break through day of learning this past week. I was up $850 on the day after two trades in the first 30 minutes of the cash open. Let's back up, the dollar signs don't matter.

With the new baby, my wife and I agreed that it was best to only trade for about an hour a day so that my attention could be better used with the family, helping her recover, taking care of the house and making the most of my parental leave time. I had a great morning session executed near flawlessly and managed to a T. It was a really well done morning, I walked away feeling proud and empowered, feeling that all traders should feel all the time. 

At some lull point in the day, I went back into the office. I was still confident. Just planned to look at where the markets had gone - likely the beginning of my fail - and jumped into a losing trade. That one loss spiraled me. Everything about my headspace changed, I just wanted to get the money back. Of course I lost more on the next trade and eventually gave back all my gains from the morning. I was unable to hold trades, was looking for tiny little swings, was overleveraging position sizes, wasn't charting or finding a narrative. I was scrambling to just get PnL and wasn't being a trader at all. It became impossible to make money when all I wanted to do was make money. Why? The fear of losing money had taken over. I cut winners short, moved to BE at the slightest move in my favor, lost all sorts of patience and trust in myself. The catch of it all, looking back at the period of time, it was a super chill uptrend lol.

The difference between morning and afternoon was night and day. Why?

1. I had already decided that I was done trading for the day.
   • Profits were mentally locked in, so losing hurt more than usual.
2. I had better things to be doing, I was rushed and lacked patience. 
   • Having lost only exaggerated the lack of patience

More than anything though - I DID NOT ACCEPT THE RISK. I wasn't willing to lose money in the afternoon and had entered the trade without any consideration of how a loss would feel or where I would end mentally. 

Moving Forward!

The beauty of life is that opportunities will always come to those who seek them. 

This month, everything changes in my world. I will trade my process. I will have targets and narratives in place. I will remain conscious of what really matters in my life - connection to God and continued personal growth in body, mind, and soul. The financial gains are a result, but not the goal.