Surely, some people lose because they lack the skill, even though they really want to win. It is a happy circumstance that when nature gives us true burning desires, she also gives us the means to
satisfy them. Those who want to win and lack skill can get someone with skill to help them.
I sometimes have dreams related to the impending direction of a market. Although these dreams tend to be very infrequent, uncannily they often prove right. Have you had any similar experiences? I know several people who claim to have market insights during dreams. I think one of the functions of
dreams is to reconcile information and feelings which the conscious mind finds intractable. For instance, I once told a
lot of my friends that I expected silver to keep on going up. When it went down instead, I ignored the signs and tried
to tell myself it was just a temporary correction. I stood to lose face and money. I couldn't afford to be wrong. Around
that time, I had dreams of being in a big, shiny, silver aircraft that stalled out and started going down toward an
inevitable crash. I eventually dumped my silver position, even went short, and the dreams stopped.
How do you judge success? I don't judge success. I celebrate it. I think success has to do with finding and following one's calling
regardless of financial gain.
Don't be fooled by the humor in Seykota's comments; there is a great deal of serious wisdom in his pithy replies. For
me personally, the most striking comment was: "Everybody gets what they want out of the market." When Seykota
first made this remark, I thought he was merely being cute. But I soon realized he was deadly serious. My reflexive
response to this premise was disbelief: It implies that all losers want to lose and all winners who fall short of their
goals (like myself) are fulfilling some inner need for a constrained threshold of success—a difficult proposition to
swallow. Although my rigidly logical mind would normally dismiss the idea, my respect for Seykota's knowledge about
markets and people forces me to consider the potential truth of the statement that everybody gets what they want
out of the market—a most provocative concept.
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