A Trader's Lesson From Usain Bolt & Steve Jobs

The World Athletics is a phenomenal event; watching athletes who train for four years for that one moment of glory is just astonishing. It is Elite Performance at the very highest level. However, every trader needs to perform at this level on a daily basis. So the question is how do we achieve this? Is it an innate ability? Is it a developed skill?

Some interesting psychology work of Sandra Scarr, was reviewed by Brett Steenberger, a trader and clinical psychologist. What she found was that genotypes shape phenotypes; people with inborn characteristics seek out particular kinds of environments which cultivate those characteristics. Thus, brighter people seek out brighter peers to stimulate their intellectual growth. The less brighter people never seek out such environments so tend to lag behind their more gifted peers. 

As with traders, we see young traders who pick up markets and technical information a little quicker. These individuals tend to get snapped up by asset management companies and big banks and are positioned in a more stimulating environment and successful trading environments. I have three friends who are several years younger than me all working as traders for big institutions, trading capital and making bets that will make most people burn out in a day. The average retail trader, most of the time never experiences a stimulating environment and progresses at a modest pace. 

Talent and environment are not enough: 'It is how your talent or skill set brings you to superior environments that stimulates and motivates you to create exponential learning curves and elite performances'. 

For example, Usain Bolt. There is a huge debate on the different genes that African-Americans/Afro-Caribbean's have compared to Caucasians. After all, out of the 80 individuals in the whole world who can run 100m under 10seconds, only one is Caucasian. However, Michael Johnson, made an important point.....in most of the countries where these fast sprinters come from, sprinting is the national sport. Usain Bolt and such likes are role models, it's the same how young kids in the UK aspire to become a premiership footballer. In some of those countries sprinting is just as big as rugby or football here in the UK. It's the environment that helps bring out the talent. 

For those of you who have read Steve Jobs Autobiography, he talks about something based on the same principles. He was known for being very aggressive with his employees and would sack people with no emotion or sympathy. However, what was his reasoning for this? He believed that A team people only want to work with A team players as they stimulate each other's intellectual growth. As soon as a B team player comes in, they bring the group down to B level standard and so on. This obviously proved to work very well as Apple are currently one the most innovative companies in recent years. 

So how does this relate to trading? Well, my own trading dramatically improved once I found an environment of like-minded people that bought out the best in me. I was stimulated to be the best trader I could be and the motivations were all similar. This is why it is so important to find someone who motivates and challenges you, be it a mentor, a partner or trading friend. Working with other traders and investors worked very well for me as everyone is there for the same specific person. Connecting with like-minded people was fantastic but it was what the group bought out of each other that was the most interesting aspect. Most people came out feeling more satisfied and inspired than they did walking in at the start of the day. 

Sometimes, we do not have the ability to find such like-minded people which is why Trader Prophets was born; to connect people with the same goals, same challenges and same desires. It's together as a community we can learn from each other's experiences and journey, so we can expedite our own journey and help others along the way. 

You can start your journey by joining our Golden Playbook network where you will recieve exclusive research and trade alerts live from the Trader Prophets trading floor. This is your chance to join a true global community of traders and investors learning, growing and profiting with forex, stocks and commodity trading strategies. 

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Natascha Sing is an investor, lawyer, entrepreneur and wealth strategist. Considered an authority on achieving peak performance through the financial markets and mastering wealth psychology, she has worked with some of the biggest institutions, financial investment houses and individual traders and investors around the world.

Through the birth of Trader Prophets, Natascha has bought together a world renowned team of traders, investors, peak performance psychologists and wealth masters to empower, educate and inspire over 15,000 people over 6 continents through her audio, video and live training programs.

With a team of over fifty years collective experience in the world's financial markets, Trader Prophets is a global leader in trader education equipping anyone, from any background with the right tools, strategy and plan to achieve success from the markets.

Whether trading Forex, Stocks or Commodities the live online trainings, workshops, coaching and personalised support has been a game changer in taking beginners with zero or little knowledge of the financial markets into confident, successful Master Traders.