I WANNA WATCH YOU BLEED
It's normal. I don't know what goes on within the average human psyche that makes it that way, but it is what it is. We are addicted to rubbernecking car wrecks. We love seeing those incidences of complete and total self-destruction, termination and defeat.
Perhaps it makes us feel better about our own lives. "At least I'm not that guy", is a common thought. It serves to calm the fractured ego after a difficult round with that relentless opponent called life.
We all bleed at different times and have different ways of dealing with it. It seems that a lot of people in the investment world attempt to create this indestructible persona of El Super Investmentidaes Matadores. They become characters out of Lucha Libre, wearing red and yellow masks, with only their eyes and mouth visible --- telling you that everything is great all of the time.
I'd accept the exterior portrayal of infinite contentment if we were talking about the tap dancing scene or making leather sofas for a living. How much can go wrong in those professions? But Wall Street? That's a different story.
This is a business built on the back of perpetual disappointment and anxiety. Even when an investment or trade goes all the way right, we find ways of complaining about getting in too early or out too late. We check the share price for weeks on end and proceed to wince when we see that our sale wasn't at the all-time high.
We think about the ones that got away far more than we think about any success we have had. We find a way to make ourselves feel like mules at every opportunity. Enough is never quite enough. And whatever we have, always seems like too little. This is the psychology of your average Wall Street participant.
And then there are the days when we actually are mules. The days where everything goes wrong. Correlations that have been working for years suddenly fall apart. Our hedges completely dissolve. Patterns that have been working for what seems like a lifetime fall apart overnight. The thought process of luck versus skill starts coming into play. You bleed from within.
For an environment like Wall Street, that is the financial version of a trench embedded deep in enemy territory, constantly under fire --- talk of casualties and injuries is suspiciously absent.
Where's the bleeding? Where are the displays of blood and guts? I see happy, go-lucky analysts, bloggers and fund managers --- talking about AAPL stock, sentiment surveys and the top 10 reasons growing a beard will help you make money in the markets.
There is a lot more to be learned from defeat than there is winning. All of those who have been able to win consistently have been faced with enormous amounts of defeat. Winning only came as a result of studying and overcoming the challenges that come along with bloody scenes of temporary failure and the agony that comes along with it.
I'm not saying that analysts, bloggers or investment advisers should turn their interviews and opinions into sob-stories. What I am saying is that to err is human. And in the field of battle that is Wall Street, to suffer wounds and scars is commonplace and necessary.
Roll up those sleeves once in a while and show off all the wonderful wounds that have been suffered. Talk about them, embrace them, point them out to the world. It will be educational for those around you and a reminder of what it took to make you king of your respective hill.
