Sep

11

To Hold or to Fold, From Leo Jia

September 11, 2012 |

I think we can all agree that pursuing one's conviction in life or even a demonstrated talent is hard. Most successful people would contend that the key is through perseverance, resilience and so on. In other words, one should not give up during hard times. I think this should be true for most successful people on this list who have indeed withstood some hardship in the early career but never given up.

This is in sharp contrast with the mostly agreed approach for trading, where quickly admitting mistakes and reversing course is very key. I don't deny that someone may be doing it through perseverance (is Buffett doing this way?). Even Soros has remarked that admitting mistakes is key for his success. It is interesting here that admitting mistakes only applies to every single trade, but not really to the hardships in one's career.

There is the saying about when to hold and when to fold. For career success, the focus seems to be "hold" on, but for trading success, the focus is to "fold" quickly.

How would one reason about the two different approaches or philosophies (perseverance vs. change)? Is one of them wrong?

Craig Mee writes:

Leo, I would humbly say, one is a number game, and the other is what you do…and with that you can certainly do some fine tuning. Problems may arise from a number of things not central to what your preferred "business" is.

Russ Sears writes: 

As a marathon runner who use to be national class, it has been my experience that persistence is only part of the battle. It is very easy for a proclaimed prodigy to persist. What is hard is learning to turn a short term loss into a long term lesson for life. If you watched the Olympics here are a few things that the athletes seemed to do differently than most people.


1. They embraced the pain. Training and hard work was enjoyed. But they also learned from their losses, injuries and general hardships in life. Perhaps these fires are the purifying necessary part of the upbringing that the prodigy misses. Learning to believe in yourself despite what others say, turning losses into a chance to strengthen weaknesses. Things whose first order effect is negative but whose second order effect can be positive are highly favored.

2. They were optimistic about their chances, with a healthy dose of realism about their abilities, their current condition and plan. Before and after the event there were no excuses. They had a plan, believed in the plan and stuck to the plan.

3. There were very few people's opinion that mattered to them, their coach, their immediate family (Dad, Mom, Husband or Wife). They did not care what the critics said, they did not depend on crowd support and were not disheartened by disfavor.

4. There were many opportunities from competition. They found their niche from competing more. While the Olympics may be the showcase for their event they were not dependent solely on its outcome. Worries melted in abundance of gratitude to coaches, training partners, family, other supporter, G_d, and country

5. They were focused on the task at hand. They knew how to avoid the distractions and discount the hype. Yeah, this may be the defining moment in their lives and how they may build their fortune, but as the song says "there will be time enough for counting, when the dealings done."

6. There appeared to be admiration for their fellow competitors. This Olympics were notable in that there were fewer accusation of doping, tainted judges (with a few exceptions about some referee) and general cheating scandals. The badminton scandal being the biggest scandal, suggests to me that the athletes were into the competition more so than the best way to game the system. Perhaps this is an inverse reflection of the markets. Or perhaps simply the media has become part of the cover-up captured by the hype, rather than the watch-dog.


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