You get what you want out of the market!

Win or lose, everybody gets what they want out of the market. Some people seem to like to lose, so they win by losing money.

I know one trader who seems to get in neat the start of every substantial bull move and works his $10 thousand up to about a quarter of a million in a couple of months. Then he changes his personality and loses it all back again. This process repeats like clockwork. Once I traded with him, but got out when his personality changed. I doubled my money, while he wiped out as usual. I told him what I was doing, and even paid him a management fee. He just couldn’t help himself. I don’t think he can do it differently. He wouldn’t want to. He gets a lot of excitement, he gets to be a martyr, he gets sympathy from his friends, and he gets to be the center of attention. Also, possibly, he may be more comfortable relating to people if he is on their financial plane. One some level, I think he is really getting what he wants.

I think that if people look deeply enough into their trading patterns, they find that, on balance, including all their goals, they are really getting what they want, even though they may not understand it or want to admit it.

A doctor friend of mine tells a story about a cancer patient who used her condition to demand attention and, in general, to dominate others around her. As an experiment prearranged with her family, the doctor told her a shot was available which would cure her. She constantly found excuses to avoid appearing for the shot and eventually avoided it entirely. Perhaps her political position was more important than her life. People’s trading performance probably reflects their priorities more than they would like to admit.

I think that some of the most flamboyant and interesting traders are playing for more than profits alone; they are probably also playing for excitement. One of the best ways to increases profits is to do goal setting and visualizations in order to align the conscious and subconscious with making profits. I have worked with a number of traders in order to examine their priorities and align their goals. I use a combination of hypnosis, breathing, pacing, visualization, gestalt, massage, and so forth. The traders usually either (1) get much more successful, or (2) realize they didn’t really want to be traders in the first place.

--- Ed Seykota, in Market Wizards by Jack Schwager. 1990, 172-173, New York: HarperBusiness.