Jonathan Wendel earned $454,544. He is very similar to us investors / traders in many ways despite being a professional video gamer. Academics have in fact identified the roles that gamers adopt — such as Explorers, Sentinels, Analysts and Campaigners. Not that dissimilar to the tribes academics assigned us investors. The point is, we are more alike than we are unalike, and both groups could learn valuable lessons from one another.
I’d like to focus on one important similarity. Video gamers competed for more than $65 million in prize money last year. It’s serious money that demands a serious mindset. Therefore, the top gamers treat it like a business, just the way that we investors need to treat our portfolio management efforts as a business.
For example, the Los Angeles based video game team the Immortals, has hired its own performance coach to insure that the group is ready to perform. Long hours in front of the screen fueled by junk food are long gone. Lifestyle and fitness training is the norm today.
To achieve stock market mastery also requires a structured lifestyle, and although many of you may not want to hear it, fitness must be an essential part of that. I submit that we investors must be even more diligent than gamers. They only need to be 100% during tournaments. Most of us, on the other hand, have skin in the game and money on the table every day, all year round.
Think back to how Tiger Woods changed the golf world. He trained like a decathlete and competed as such. Most CEOs I’ve met clearly deem fitness important. I’m not suggesting that you train as intensely as Sir Richard Branson (Virgin) or Dick Costolo (Twitter), but as 84-year-old T. Boone Pickens says, “my fitness is a daily priority.” Besides the obvious benefits of living longer and avoiding illness, I’ve found when I am fit, I have more energy, better mental health and an empowering confidence in my trading abilities.
The bottom line is that if you take care of yourself, your Investor Self will take care of the profits. Our motto as investors should be, “thrive, not just survive.”
Trade well; trade with discipline!
- Gatis Roze, MBA, CMT
- Author, Tensile Trading: The 10 Essential Stages of Stock Market Mastery (Wiley, 2016)
- Presenter of the best-selling Tensile Trading DVD seminar
- Presenter of How to Master Your Asset Allocation Profile DVD seminar
- Developer of the StockCharts.com Tensile Trading ChartPack
