From The Desk Of A Trader #21
"The market tells you you're an idiot all the time."
Cheat Sheet -
Support and resistance levels and our daily, weekly and monthly bias on BTC, ETH, CL, ES, and NQ as well as our favorite altcoins.
Today, we are happy to share the thoughts from the desk of a commodities trader. The following views are that of Martijn Bron and do not represent the views of his employer.
From The Desk Of A Trader
On a successful trading desk you are surrounded with “disagreeable” people, skeptics who can point out your blind spots, question assumptions, and help overcome your weaknesses.
I read a lot, mostly related to #trading, #investing, politics and economics, and how they all relate to each other, driven by human psychology and behavior.
It is rare that I read "#management" books written by scholars, as I find them often too guru-ish, theoretical and fashionable.
I'll share an exception which was an eye opener for me.
Couple years ago I was convinced a certain approach did not make sense.
In the hope to prove myself right, I read "Surrounded by idiots", the four types of human behavior, or how to understand those who cannot be understood, by Thomas Erikson.
I came to the conclusion that I may have been the idiot myself.
The book works as a mirror. It improved my self awareness, and my appreciation for how other people behave, communicate and try to get things done.
In essence we are all idiots, which was a bit of a revelation and humbling.
I know people who don't read, and can't cope well with hearing they are an idiot.
They wouldn't enjoy life on a trading desk, and aren't suited as traders outside of a trading desk either.
The market tells you you're an idiot all the time.
I use the term idiot as a metaphor to express the importance and value of being disagreed with by others, in order to overthink your analysis and decisions.
I thought about all this after a person I highly respect sent me an article about the book "Think Again", by The Wharton School professor Adam Grant.
I saw Adam Grant as one of those guru's posting "a good boss is better than a bad boss". Really?
But I can strongly relate to this article.
It is about the merits of having a challenge network.
“A challenge network is a group of people we trust to point out our blind spots and help us overcome our weaknesses. Their role is to push us to be humble about our expertise, doubt our knowledge, and be curious about what knowledge we don’t have”
“The ideal members of a challenge network are disagreeable, critical and skeptical. They’re fearless about questioning the way things have always been done and holding us accountable for thinking again”
A trading desk is a perfect challenge network!
“There’s evidence that disagreeable people speak up more frequently, especially when leaders aren’t receptive, and foster more constructive conflict”
“They give the critical feedback we might not want to hear, but need to hear”
“Strong leaders engage their critics and make themselves stronger. Weak leaders silence their critics and make themselves weaker”
“Across a range of workplaces, when employees received tough feedback from colleagues, their default response was to avoid those coworkers or drop them from their networks altogether, and their performance suffered over the following year”
The most raised question at our trading desk; "what do YOU think"?
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