Advice From People We Love To Hate...

 

(No they’re not Lawyers or Politicians)

This is what they said...

1) It’s not what you earn, it’s the lessons you learn.

2) No matter what mistakes you and I make today – tomorrow we will have another opportunity to do better.

3) Losses are tuition.  Learn from them.

4) You should expect to be wrong half of the time.

5) You can’t be everything. You must commit to a strategy and sacrifice other strategies.

6) Hard work alone won’t cut it if you don’t have a sound approach and if you’re not doing the right things. You must be facing west if you’re looking for a sunset.

7) Make good decisions even with incomplete information.

8) Do anything well for 10 years and you will be a success.

9) What is missing from a life of comfort and convenience is effort.  Over time, people conditioned to comfort/convenience lose the capacity to sustain effort.

10) There is little room for alpha males/females in a world that values empowerment over power; teamwork over individual initiative; lifestyle over accomplishment.  In athletics, the military, and trading, however, there is always room for the individual who strives for elite status.  That status comes from rigorous training and discipline, neither of which are comfortable nor convenient.  Perhaps those virtues are out of fashion, but they form the very fountainhead of human achievement. 

This is who said it...

1) & 2) Charles E Kirk

3) & 4) Nicholas Darvas

5) & 6) Mark Minervini

7) Michael Steinhardt  8) Howard Lindzon

9) & 10) Brett Steenbarger

This is who they are...

Wall Street Traders

Yep.  Wall Street Traders.

I never thought reading anything they had to say would be so insightful or delightful.

But a headline on Yahoo Finance led me to a Forbes article which led me to the blogs of Brett Steenbarger and Charles Kirk.   And surprise – this is what I found there. 

Reading can turn up treasures in unlikely places.

Life advice when you are expecting “50-day” and “200-day” moving averages, Head and Shoulder patterns and Cup and Saucer formations.

But then I rarely come up empty-handed from my online forays.

The web delivers a wealth of information and new ideas, continuously expands my horizons and even helps me find solutions to some pesky self-created problems. 

- Want to know how to get Super Glue off your spectacle lenses because you are a 240% bakra (Hindi for goat) and had the idiocy to superglue the lens of your spectacles to your frames? (I know the answer – it's nail polish remover – and, yes, I found that on the web!)

- Want to get caked-on residue to come off a cooking pan (all that fighting with a dish brush and dish soap and accompanying cussing is pointless – the trick is to put a little vinegar and baking soda into the pan and leave that in the pan overnight – and the next morning you will wonder what all the brouhaha was about, I promise you – found that on the web too!)

- How about getting cosmetic wax off of your hands? (Soap and water? - nah, Detergent and water? - nah , A vigorous scrub with a brush? – nah –the answer is oil – plain old oil, baby oil, if you don’t have that, olive oil and if you don’t have that, cooking oil from your kitchen cabinet  will do quite nicely– and blush, yes, I found that on the web as well!).

If you’ve figured that the web is my private Superman, Spiderman and Wonder Woman, you are right.

There is, however, one more way I regularly save myself from myself  - and from going nowhere fast.  And that's “with a little help from my family and friends”.

I have found that just by talking to people and finding out what’s going on in their world and asking for their views, I pick up some really valuable ideas and tips.  

Let me tell you the story of my current job as an Xactly Implementation Architect.

Do you know that it came out of a conversation with my sister R?

She attended a talk by a job coach and the job coach said it was beneficial while unemployed to enroll in some course or program that was high on employers’ wish lists and would make an impact on a resume.

Hearing this, it immediately sparked an idea. I knew I wanted to work for a company which administered commissions with Xactly commission software, and after that conversation with Sis, I decided not to wait and hope for things to happen, but to make them happen.  Instead of trying to find employment in a company that was using Xactly, I decided to become Xactly certified.

3 months later, I had the Xactly certification under my belt and had secured a gig as an Xactly Implementation Architect with Solution Partners.

So listen up. Be interested in everything you read and hear.  Become a really attentive reader and listener. You never know when or how it might benefit you.  

And as this post suggests, cast your net wide because you also never know where your next big idea could come from. 

As Charles E Kirk, one of the traders for whom I have new found respect, says “Look for ideas that challenge your positions and/or offer unique insight you can really learn something from”.  Well said, Mr. Kirk!

P.S. One of my daughter’s friends, Darian, recently took a homeless man to breakfast at McDonalds and he said, the encounter taught him, if nothing else, that one should listen to one’s parents, because the homeless man said his troubles began when he decided to split from his parents and go his own way.

P.S. 2:  If you enjoyed this post and want to read the blogs of Charles Kirk and Brett Steenbarger, you can do so here and here. 

P.S. 3: If all the talk about Xactly software went in one of your ears and out the other, because you had no clue what the shizzle I was talking about, my post My Day Job. Xactly. More or Less should be able to shed some light.  It lets you be a fly on my professional wall.

P.S. 4:  And finally, thanks for reading – especially if you are not big on reading!!!!! My sister R is Rosie for those who know her.  Before I end this post, I would like to give a shout out to her and to all the rest of you folks in my circle of family and friends (you know who you are) who help keep the ideas flowing and the perspectives going for me  -- through that wonderful mechanism known as “human conversation”.