 Welcome back to the Trade Hacker Mindset. In this episode, I wanna talk to you about why trading is like an ultra marathon. Trading the markets can be difficult to master and seemingly just out of reach. Professional traders have a secret. Trading requires total mental and emotional control. It requires the Trade Hacker Mindset. All right, so let's jump into this topic of why trading is like an ultra marathon. By the way, if you hear birds chirping or cars driving by, it's because I'm out for a stroll on this lovely January 2nd day. Markets are closed today in observance of New Year, so happy New Year. But if you hear any audio issues, you're just, you're coming along for the walk with me. So all right, so what is an ultra marathon? Well, I think you probably know what a marathon is, right? It's 26.2 miles. An ultra marathon is typically something where people are running in excess of 100 miles. So it's the crazy of the crazies that do ultra marathons, right? If you've ever heard of a guy named David Goggins, if you haven't looked him up, it's a, he's a guy who's done a lot of ultra marathons. Anyway, the basis of me talking about this is when it comes to trading, I think a lot of new traders and experienced traders think that if they find that one strategy, if they find that one tactic, if they find that one indicator, that is what's going to be their edge. It's going to turn them into a successful trader. And by the way, it's not really your fault of why you think that way. This industry has a really terrible reputation of marketing just complete BS when it comes to the ability to produce consistent profits without having to put in much effort, okay? So let's just, let's just squash that right off the bat. And hopefully you understand, if you're listening to this podcast, you've probably gotten to the point where you understand that that just isn't how real trading works. The reality is the people who become successful traders are the ones who become obsessed, not unlike an ultra marathon runner. It's someone who is just absolutely obsessed with trading and will spend the time and put in the effort to make it happen. Now I've never run an ultra marathon. I've never even run a full marathon. I've done plenty of half marathons and I've done it half Iron Man before. But the reality is when it comes to that kind of dedication to running an ultra marathon, it is something that takes absolute focus, absolute discipline and absolute mindset that's going to push you through the times where you don't feel like running, right? Trading is no different, okay? It's gonna be that absolute dedication, that absolute mindset that's going to push you through situations that are unfavorable in trading. And maybe that unfavorable situation comes in the form of a drawdown. Maybe it comes in the form of a situation where over a period of days or weeks or months, you have a negative P and L that you're trying to work your way out of. Maybe it comes in the form of a situation where you thought you had the strategy of all strategies that was going to propel you into this just absolute cash producing machine and you realized it's not gonna happen like you wanted it to. I don't know how many times over the last 20 years I have found myself in that situation where whether it was doing some back testing on a strategy or looking at a specific indicator on a chart in my early days that I thought by eyeballing, oh my gosh, this is the golden goose. This is what's going to take my trading to a point where all I have to do is just follow the red light, green light and next thing you know, I'm gonna be on an island trading from my laptop only when I want to, right? I mean, I think a lot of new traders kind of have that maybe not that exact kind of expectation but some sort of dramatic dramatized expectations of what they think trading is gonna do for them financially. And guys, it's the old adage, right? If it sounds too good to be true, then it is, okay? There's no way that you're going to find something that's so easy that you can literally just look at this and it tells you yes or tells you no and it's going to create a situation where you're gonna have just this massive success that it just doesn't exist, okay? So the sooner that you get out of your mind that trading is easy, the sooner you are going to propel yourself forward to be a successful trader. So all of these stories that you hear online, on social media, of people showing their private jets on Instagram, showing their Lamborghinis that they just made from clicking a few buttons and working 20 minutes a day trading, okay, you've gotta shut that out. You've gotta stop listening to that garbage. What you don't see behind the scenes is number one, A, it's total BS. It's not even true. They rented that jet just for the Instagram photo, which is a lot of the cases, or B, you don't know that they've put in 20 years behind the scenes, grinding, losing money, filing for bankruptcy, going through all of the hard lessons that it took to get to the point where now what they do is they make it look easy, okay? For somebody who hasn't gone through that, it still is not easy. So it's not like you can just jump in, do what they do, follow their trades, and all of a sudden you're gonna be able to duplicate what they've done. It just does not work that way. But yet that's what we are fed in these advertisements, right? That's what you're fed in these emails that you get about these different trading services. This is what you're fed every time you look into a Facebook group or an Instagram post of some trading guru that has just made millions of dollars, right? One of the things we do at Navigation Trading is we really try to create realistic expectations of what it's like to be a successful trader. And the reality of trading is that it's not a sprint. The reality of it is trading is like an ultramarathon. It is hard. It's a grind. You have to train. You have to put in the effort. It's not going to happen the first time you get out there and you click the button to make a trade. It's not going to happen because you find a magic strategy. It's not going to happen because you find a magic indicator. It's just not, that's just not how it works. Most likely, like any ultramarathon runner, you are going to go through episodes where you are mentally drained from trading, where you want to quit over and over and over again. And each time you push through, it gets you closer to that finish line. I've been trading over 20 years. In my first 10 years of trading, I probably quit trading with the intent or with the intent of never trading again, probably, I'd say seven or eight times at least, okay? So in a 10-year period, my first 10 years, I probably quit trading at least seven or eight times. And it was because I would have thoughts like, this just doesn't work. Is this any different than gambling? This indicator that I thought was going to work didn't work. But the reality was, the majority of the times that I quit is because I was just trading too big. Some of the very first strategies when I first started trading options are still things that I trade today with a very high level of success, but there's the same reason that I quit back in the day, just strictly because of the position size I was trading. That's it, nothing else. And when you start to just push out the BS, when you start to just start to realize that that stuff over there that is completely false when it comes to trading, when you finally start to push that away and you really start to focus on yourself and the methodology and the structure and the mechanics of a real trader, you are going to start having these light bulb moments, these aha moments, one after another after another. Like when I finally realized that one of the biggest keys to trading was position size, it blew me away. I was like, you have got to be kidding that this is the key to successful trading. Like it was one of those moments where I was like, you are such an idiot, I cannot believe it took you that long to figure it out. I mean, I literally think of it like going back to the ultramarathon thing. I literally think of it like, it's like an ultramarathon runner continuing to do these long runs and continuing to get dehydrated and then realizing, oh shit, I've actually got to drink some water. I mean, that's how much of a baseball bat across the forehead it was to me when I finally realized that position size was that big of a deal. Or when I realized how big of a factor implied volatility was when trading options. When I would buy a call, it would go in my direction and the stock would go up and I would still lose money and I could not figure that out. And then I realized implied volatility in theta and how those factor into positions. That was another aha moment. Or when I started taking money out of my account, when I started paying myself for my trading profits on a consistent basis and realized the psychological benefit that that has. I don't have any proof of this, but I would say that my accounts have probably compounded quicker even though I've taken money out, then they would have had I left money in. It makes the money real. It no longer is this virtual cash machine, this video game that we're playing on these red and green candles. Now it is actually real. It's in my hands, I can spend it. And that's had a tremendous benefit on my trading. And these are all things that I can tell you until I'm blue in the face. But these kind of things, these little nuances, these aha moments, most of you, especially if you're newer, you are going to dismiss this. And eventually you'll figure it out or you'll quit trading all together. But these aha moments are only things that you can actually gain that will actually help you, will actually help you become a better trader if you experience them for yourself. Because listen guys, I'm not special. Most of you all are smarter than I am. Most of you all could be better traders than I am. The only difference is I've gone through the bumps and the bruises. I've ran the ultramarathons. I've had all the intentions of quitting. I've become dehydrated, AKA, I've blown out my account multiple times. That's the only difference between you and I. So if you are having those feelings, if you're still believing the BS about what it takes to be a successful trader, you have to push through those things. And if you don't, you'll either quit and you'll go back to work and you'll hate your job or you will figure it out by pushing through and continuing to push and push and push and work through those nuances, make the mistakes, have the bumps, have the bruises, go get dehydrated, all the things, and eventually come out on the other side. And guess what? The other side is good. The other side is probably the most rewarding thing that you'll ever experience. So if you are serious about becoming a successful trader, get the mindset that you're in for an ultramarathon. This is not a sprint, this is not a half marathon. This isn't even a marathon, guys. This is an ultramarathon, okay? So if you're not ready for that, if you're not committed to that, then you should probably just quit now and save yourself a lot of money and save yourself a lot of headache and save yourself a lot of stress. But if you go into it with the mindset that even if I have losses, that's a learning experience. Even if I do the wrong thing, it's a learning experience, but if you're always of the mindset that it's going to make you better, that's the mindset that you need to have to finish that ultramarathon. That's the ultimate mindset that you need to have to become a successful trader. So I hope you get there. As always, you can drop a note to me in the community if you have any questions. Community.navigationtrading.com. We look forward to seeing you on the inside and we'll see you in the next episode.