Trading: Addiction vs Passion
This episode is a bit of a controversial topic. It’s the debate of whether trading is a type of gambling addiction vs a credible skill and avenue to earn financial freedom!
The root of it is the distinction between a dangerous addiction with momentum for destruction, vs a powerful opportunity to build an empire with passion and dedication! The lens with which you see it paints the experience in very different lights!
Some days we have such a hard time walking away from the charts. And with mostly every trade we enter, you feel the heightened emotions that it gives you, to one degree or another. There is real money and risk on the line. You could very quickly have your account red in a loss, or conversely green and growing. Either way, it will create an emotional response. Because we are not AI trading robots. When we win, the dopamine rush is undeniable and exciting. Why wouldn’t we love that and want more?!?! When we lose, however, the potential regret or frustration we can feel is so heavy. When emotions are in either extreme state, it can be a struggle to maintain neutrality, logic, focus, and most importantly: risk management. We have to stay aware of those potential feelings and do our best to walk away if we are not evenly keeled enough to still make winning choices at the charts. This has taken time and is still a work in progress for us mamas! Because it can absolutely feel like a high and the urge to take more is potent!
The only way trading can truly be sustainable and compound into a successful, regular financial income is if you are in control of your executions and risk management. If every trade is treated independently and you regularly win more than you lose. There are a lot of influencing factors to that simple plan, but the core of it is what has to be honored. We have to manage the cravings, balance our lives, call out risky emotions in real time and with respect for their power, and acknowledge and walk away when we are no longer at our best level to execute from. The maturity that this takes is not built overnight, far from it.
This goes back to the teenager analogy. When you are first tasting something really fun and new, it makes you curious and you are not yet fully aware of the potential downsides. But after you blow a few accounts, it must be faced! The cravings and compulsion to trade more and try to catch every swing of the market must be dealt with in a healthy manner to curb that addictive pull.
“Addiction destroys, passion creates, and that is the only difference between them.”
~ Kevin Ashton
In trading, you will be knocked down. It will hurt and you will pay. Many quit after letting those feelings of shame, failure, and uncertainty overtake their potential to push on. It stings and the financial impact does matter. You have to be able to take the pain and get back up to push through to next levels. Like the saying goes, no pain no gain, cliche but true nonetheless. It’s a real challenge to not be consumed by the risk and fight with the market. When we win, someone else loses, and when we lose, someone wins. It's not personal and respecting the probabilities of this business is essential. Regardless of the outcome, a desire to learn how to do better, see it more clearly is the most healthy approach. There’s always room for improvement even on the greenest of green days.
With the alcohol analogy, I want to have a drink or two during an evening with friends, but maintain my composure, safety, and health so that I minimize hangover potential. I see the substance as a choice when conditions are right, rather than a drug that I need to feel some kind of way. I am not engaging in a need to be drunk to have a good time every night, but rather enjoying an activity in the right circumstances and with risk mitigation. In this way, it adds value to my life without taking from it. Relating that to trading, with maturity, comes my ability to only trade when I have had adequate rest, completed my thorough analysis and made my trade plan, and have fully accepted the risk of each trade. And then to call it a day when I have reached my daily points target, my maximum acceptable loss, or am just out of time to be focused on my charts. That ability to stop when indicated per my trading rules is significant.
Have you ever wondered if your trading was an unhealthy addiction? In our journeys, we certainly have. Thank goodness for our ride or die accountability partnership, excellent mentors and strong communities around us as we grew. This allowed us a safe place to call these emotions out and tackle them head on. It is not gambling to us. Trading is a business opportunity that is truly challenging on way more levels than most, but also potentially incredibly rewarding. It is a journey and to expect rapid results is not realistic. We have taken the trading passion path over the potential addiction path with our eyes wide open and safeguards in place that enable us to stay in this game!
We aren’t and will never claim to be trading experts. We are humbled mamas who know enough now to recognize the dangers of trading and choose to respect them so that we can climb to the highest peaks. There are similarities between an addictive activity such as gambling or alcoholism and day trading, and that should be fully appreciated. But every adult who attempts trading needs to work that out for themselves in their intellectual as well as psychological minds. We know it has been an easier adventure to travel by openly leaning into each other and our communities. That’s why we’re talking about this here at Market Mamas!