When I was in my twenties I bought a sport motorcycle.  It was fast, cool, and it felt good to be on it.  Five months into owning it I had my first close call with a high speed collision.  I sold it within the week.  What happened was that I realized I lacked the maturity to ask myself one important question, “How fast will this go?”

I have been an intermittent stock trader for the last eight years, and I have come to the realization that I lack that same kind of maturity as my motorcycle experience.  When, I’m in a trade that is running up, I yearn to hold on for the big hit.  I find myself watching it run up…and then I watch it lose ground as I hope that it will get back to where it was.

I have a gambler’s mentality with my trading.  When things are going well for me I have the most maturity and don’t get greedy, but where I really crash and burn is when things are going against me.  I always hold on too long and make things worse. I just can’t handle loss.  I must acknowledge and adjust to the role of emotion in my trading or I must pay someone else to do it for me.

Lately, that is the direction I have taken.  I now pay someone to manage my funds and I have found that to be a better solution for me.  It felt like giving up, but when I pencil it out, I think it is the best choice.  If you can relate to what I’m writing about, then maybe this choice might be best for you as well.

You may call me uneducated or uninformed, but I can tell you that for me it is the best choice.  In ONO I speak about being realistic about strengths and weaknesses.  After a long time of fighting an up-hill battle, I have accepted one of my weaknesses and created a solution.