Impossible
It’s all Impossible
When I was young, I was constantly reminded how some things were just impossible and why I shouldn’t try. I had many dreams, but a difficult start in life meant they were very, very distant. I had no mentor, guide or path to follow so I didn’t know how to achieve the things I so dearly wanted. Life was going to be a whole lot of hard work!
I started to read up and understand how others had been successful. A lot of them extolled the virtues of a positive mental attitude, a can-do approach! At first, this sounded like a load of BS, but over time I realised that if you surround yourself with positive thoughts and people while discarding negative thoughts and people, you slowly appreciate that anything is possible with enough effort and application.
Nothing’s impossible
A key lesson I learnt was that nothing is completely impossible, it was just sometimes very difficult and requiring gargantuan effort. You need a lot of drive to fill those skill gaps! You also learn that sometimes, you needed a bit of luck. But even that taught me something, that luck is where opportunity meets ability. Negative thinkers just never spot the opportunity. Ultimately this is why it pays to have a positive outlook.
When I quit my job all those years ago with a wife and three toddlers, I was really worried about what could go wrong. In fact, I should have been worried about what I was missing out on. Within about six months I realised I’d made the right move. Not that things were going well, but for the first time my eyes were open and opportunities were popping up all over the place.
I’ve learnt that through my involvement with Bet Angel as well. I’ve seen so many people take trading as the start point to much bigger things. That’s been hugely satisfying to watch and probably the most rewarding thing about what I have done in the last ten years.
Mantra
My mantra since that moment in my life has been to accentuate the positive. I realise this annoys some people, but that in itself will tell you a lot about the way that people think. The key to progressing in all aspects of life, IMHO, is to overcome this inbuilt negativity. But if you choose to do so, you will attract attention from people who can’t do that, it’s just human nature. Fear of loss in many forms drives a lot of decision making.
Approach every situation with the view that people will be attempting to avoid a loss. Whether it’s the person that cut you up on the motorway this morning, the person that belittled you, that trade you took in-play, the football team that is 2-0 up, it’s all down to loss aversion! It’s a powerful incentive.
Ploughing ahead
About eighteen months ago somebody thought it would be nice to stick the knife into me. I couldn’t possibly have done anything I said I’d done and I couldn’t still be doing it. In case you haven’t spotted the moral of this, and the irony, those comments were a form of loss aversion! I could see it, they c0uldn’t. Nothing could change that.
Curiously though, that really spurred me on. I guess it’s a throwback to those early years. The drive to achieve for me is not motivated by money, but by achievement and proving others wrong. I’ve often stated my desire to hand over elements of what I do to my children, but I put that on hold (again) last year during the big meetings to really go for it again.
Achieving the impossible at Cheltenham
Once again, the decision to think positively paid off and I did well last year. I was also contacted by Betdaq recently to ask if they could use my results from last year to highlight what was possible. I was happy to accept. They are now running a promotion based on my results, there are £2k in prizes to win if you want to enter: –
I realise I am fairly unique in these markets and don’t seek to make people think they can emulate what I’ve done, but while people have often complained that there hasn’t been enough liquidity on Betdaq, I think it just depends on your viewpoint. Having been around since the start, many markets did not have much liquidity but built from those small foundations to be huge. Why were Betdaq interested in publishing my results? Well, not only did I trade on Betdaq at last years Cheltenham festival, but I won on all 28.
But that of course is, well……. impossible. Isn’t it?
Category: Trading strategies
