Lessons from my vacuum and $SGMA.  I know sounds strange right off the bat, how can I have lessons from my vacuum and a ticker?  Ok, that sounds like a horrible set up right?  Well both had great outcomes.  You can see my verified $SGMA trade here.  Friday while vacuuming the house a horribel screeching sound started.  At first I thought something got sucked in, upon inspection did not see anything.  The top looked kind of loose, took the vacuum apart expecting to find a broken part.  Did not see anything broken, put it back together, did not appear loose anymore, ran the vacuum same horrible sound.  Took it apart again, and found ahh the belt for the brush was coming apart.  Simple look up of the part on amazon be here Saturday, awesome.  

 

Friday mid day, just after vocally processing $IGEN with my partner and my hesitation in trading it even thought it finally broke and was holding over resistance and seemed to be holding so far.  I opened up my stockstotrade mobile app to see what it was doing, and bull of the day, big % gainer etc.  In our son’s school parking lot I accessed set up, set a buy order, and started to drive.  Had mental stops in mind, set alerts when got home on my computer and started to eat lunch.  (Alerts on my cell are at times delayed while on my desktop are real time.)   Bada bing bada boom, before I knew it all out, wtf only $67 profit, all that for that. Wait that was just damn near 3:1 r:r/11% green.  Yo few months ago I was struggling to get 5%, I just did that mobile, while eating lunch.  Yeah it ran more, bigger size, get back in yada yada, forget about woulda could shoulda.  That was a fantastic trade.   Plan, execution, sticking to your plan, multi tasking.  Do be so hard on myself about it.  

 

So lets fast forward to Saturday morning now and I see our vacuum belt has arrived.  So I start taking apart the vacuum to install the new belt and realize.  Most of the work I have done since IDK how long has always had a tangible immediate outcome.  Make a pizza, paint a wall, cut a yard, lower a vehicle, install internet.  Physical labor has a huge sense of accomplishment in it at the end of the task, be it a day, week, month.  Day trading not so much so, there will always be could have done better.  Very rarely will you top & bottom tick on your trades.  Even in execution of my plan  thinking could have gone with a bigger position.  

 

So what am I getting at with this.  I realized I am hard on myself as I am conditioned to think of my job or task as having immediate outcomes at the end of the task, and those task being relatively finite.  After painting a wall, its painted, what are going to do paint it again, ok maybe it took two or three coats.  Its done.  When you make food, when its done its done.  Install internet, speed in range, it’s done.  I have to be ok with the trade is done, and thinking it in terms of stuck to the plan yes or no and leaving it at that.  Yes looking to see how can improve is good, but being hard on myself over it is not the best manner in which to improve.  

 

I was in $SGMA for 64 minutes, thinking has an employer ever paid me $67 an hour.  No, close but no.  And the pay was for working on a holiday, 8 hours holiday pay, plus time and a half for working over 40 hours in the week, so pay 2.5 for 8 hours of the day not even the full 10-16 hour day worked.  And at that none of those times were that much an hour.  So should I still feel like woulda coulda shoulda.  With this I release the conditioning of tangible task oriented work.  I allow myself to feel the same sense of accomplishment with the manner in which I stick to a trade plan.  I allow myself to trust when to let my winner run.  I allow myself to pay myself more from trading stocks than any employer ever has.