Can you talk more about what you mean by courage? If a 260-pound fullback is running through the line and a 175-pound linebacker has to stop him, he has to
have the courage to go into him. You need that kind of courage to be able to participate in the markets. If everyone is
bullish the dollar, and the yen is sharply lower, it takes courage to fade that major consensus and buy the yen.
How do you judge success? Most people will judge success by how well they do in their field. A teacher would judge success by how well
the students do and how they go through life. A trader would probably judge success by whether he wins or loses in
the market.
Speaking personally, how do you judge success'. I judge success by what I do with the money I accumulate. One of the things that my wife and I have done is
to establish a foundation so that we could share some of our success with the community by supporting various
programs.
Is this foundation one that you just fund, or do you have a hands-on relationship in running it? My family and I are directly involved in evaluating different projects and deciding which ones to fund.
When did you set up this foundation? In 1985. But I had thought about the idea as far back as the early 1970s. I had always planned that if I were
to become successful, I would set up a foundation to help the community.
Do you think this long-term goal was an important motivation leading to your success as a trader? Yes, I think it helped.
What advice do you have for the beginning trader? When you are starting out, it is very important not to get too far behind because it is very difficult to fight
back. Most traders have a tendency to take risks that are too large at the beginning. They tend not to be selective
enough about when they take risks.
At this point, Bielfeldt asked me to turn off the tape recorder. He talked about the relevance and application
of poker strategy to trading. His reason for keeping the comments off-the-record was that he didn't want to
contribute to the image of trading as a form of gambling. I found his analogy particularly apropos and finally
persuaded him to put it on the record.
