I had a fine time this past Monday at the Trader's Expo in New York City. The highlight was when I met my new mentor John Carter after he gave a 15-minute talk on finding Elephant trades. I introduced myself briefly but after that I quickly retreated to let the other people have their chance.
After that I went back to the Expo floor and visited the TradeStation booth to watch a presentation by Linda Bradford who is a legend in her own right. After that, I returned back to the same room where JC gave his talk to find him in the hallway outside the room delving into detail with one guy who had hung around along with his support staff which consists of his office assistant, his sister-in-law and (none other than) Carolyn Boroden - The Fibonacci Queen who is a co-host of the Simpler Options chat room. I hung around in the background for a few minutes until the other guy left and I had my chance - a hallway conversation with John Carter.
We chatted about a number of things including our favorite current elephant trade Catamaran (CTRX). I mentioned that I admired how smooth he was during his presentations, and it seemed that whatever nasty circumstances were thrown his way, he was able to right himself and move on. In fact he gave his 15 minute presentation without any notes or slides. He was completely at ease with himself and the material.
After a few more minutes of small talk, he picked up on where I was going which was more the psychological aspects of success. Here is a guy with a wife, kids, mortgage and all the same financial obligations as myself. In my case I use those as a reason why I have to play it safe and stick with my corporate job. Yet JC has all those same obligations - and it doesn't hold him back in the least.
As an example, I mentioned that in one of his video updates, his kids were screaming in the background. He explained in the video that his wife was sick and he had to bring the kids to the office and (after that brief explanation) said something along the lines of "life's great" and just moved on. I told him I admired the fact that he seemed to be able to brush off any distractions - including family obligations - and stay on his game no matter what else is going on.
He seemed to get that my limitations were somewhat self-imposed and said things really opened up for him when he read the book "The Instant Millionaire" by Mark Fisher. I never heard of the book before and haven't read it yet. But my opinion of Mr Carter went up 50-fold after that conversation. Here is a guy who is incredibly successful, a dedicated family man and willing to spend a few minutes with me. Thanks JC - you are a true gentleman.
As for trading, it was a quiet week. My portfolio got up to new all-time highs on early in the week due to some positive action in CTRX including a new all-time closing high on Wednesday. The market took a nasty turn on Wednesday and Thursday taking back all of February's gains in the Indexes, but recovered somewhat on Friday.
Now I'm off to find my copy of "The Instant Millionaire" - hopefully at the local library.
That's all for now, enjoy your weekend and get some rest.
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