Resting Comfortably – Well, I guess I wasn’t kidding about “shutting down” in last night’s video, as I found myself in the E.R. at two this morning dealing with severe chest pains.

Three hours of EKG, blood tests, and X-Rays later, the old ticker checked out fine, and the docs think that virus I’d picked up last week that’s been lingering a bit likely settled into my lung linings … which apparently can feel like someone hit you with a sledgehammer.

And while that was my feeling as well before heading to the hospital (it felt more chest than heart, else I would have called 911 in a heartbeat … no pun intended), I felt I needed to practice “risk management” in the truest sense of the word by heading to the E.R. and momentarily escaping to life’s equivalent of a “cash position”.

And kudos to all the doctors and nurses who showed me they don’t mess around with chest pain.  For in less than five minutes from arriving, they had me completely wired and monitored.  And yes, I’m typing this horizontally from my sofa on my wi-fi, so I’m following doc’s orders.  It was also about twenty years ago where paramedics literally brought my father back from the other side when he had a true heart attack and had flatlined.

Monkeys & Trading – Back on the trading front, my thanks to blog onlooker Andrew R. who forwarded the attached video and synopsis to me.  As he indicated to me in his email:

“… the video reflects a fascinating 20 minute TED talk by Laurie Santos on experiments which introduced monkeys to the concept of money and trading. It turns out monkeys are prone to the same irrational tendencies as humans when it comes to various things, including significantly, loss aversion. This means that the principle difficulty many have with trading lies in a psychological bias that is at least 35 million years old!  No wonder it’s a struggle.”

And while the video is about twenty minutes long, I think you’ll find every minute well spent. 

The only thing I’ll add is if you think about what all of the “monkeys” are doing in the market at any given time, it may help further reinforce how successful traders profit from them.

Some thoughts and updates on this sizzling summer Sunday.

Clambake Update - I expect to make a decision by next weekend as to whether we’ll hold the 9/25 trader clambake, as the timing is tough for many, and there are many “maybes” which is making judging a preliminary catering headcount a bit of a challenge.   One option is to scale it back a bit by doing more of a lower key barbecue as we did last year. 

If we indeed choose to proceed, I’d still subsidize the majority of it including paying 100% for any of the live program Jellies, and 2/3 for other guests (so the non-Jellie attendee cost would be $10/head for lobster, chicken, steak, etc.)

I’ll keep you posted.

Trader & Poker Player Burnout - It was very intriguing this week watching the 2010 “invite-only” Tournament of Champions final table as commentators Lon McCarron and Norman Chad both shared burnout stories of practically every world-class pro at the table. 

Huck Seed, Jennifer Harman, Barry Greenstein, Johnny Chan, Daniel Negraneu … the list went on and on detailing how each one had to struggle through extended periods (months, and in some cases years) where they lacked interest, desire, motivation, and focus.  Yet in the end, many of the stories referenced what it took for each to find something to retrigger their passion, desire, and commitment for the game.

For some it was the boom of online poker.  For others, it was learning a new game or involving charitable causes.  Yet regardless of the “trigger”, and while some arguably will never be able to fully recapture their dominating years as players and trends change, they all were able to latch onto something to spark that internal flame of passion to some extent.

Those of us who have been through similar phases in our “poker cousin” career of trading can certainly relate.

I know I can, as I wrote about in spades in mid 2009 when hitting a wall after exceeding every trading objective and industry benchmark I’d ever set for myself after the 2007-09 runs.  At that time, I chose revisiting my earlier teaching roots and a charitable cause as motivation.

Yet the search to maintain one’s passion … whether in life, romantic love, or the “love” of trading never ends.

As Rule #222 in my favorite “trading” book The Tao of Poker states,

“The truth is, it takes a lot of energy to stay on the cutting edge of anything (note just to get there, but to stay there), and this is true whether we’re talking about poker, athletic achievements, business, entertainment, art – anything.  It can be draining to be on top, so eventually we fall back a little.  We’re comfortable with letting somebody else take the lead for a while.  It is sometimes helpful to ‘return to our roots’ in the sense of reaching back to this best, sharpest, self. ”

As I mentioned on Friday, sometimes it takes that step backward – or even sideways in the form of burnout (recall the Warren Buffett ‘plateau’ post from a few weeks ago) – to once again put the spring in one’s step.  Such is also why it’s so incredibly important and necessary to push the accelerator during those prime periods during the year or in your career as we ”prepurchase” the time and freedom which we’ll all need down the road.

Good traders recognize this.

For a trading career – like life – is full of cycles of initial desire, passion, exponential growth, weariness, rest, rejuvenation, and then back to desire again.

Hmmm … that sounds just like a futures chart.

And my current equity curve.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.