I’m a real diva when it comes to authenticity, but I recently contradicted myself and purchased a replica canvas print of Van Gogh’s Starry Night from the Van Gogh Museum online (seems I've purchased the last canvas replica as there aren't any more available online). When I received it, I was really disappointed that the replica lacked any of the vividly gorgeous details of the real painting and realised that the artist’s bold brush strokes are what give the painting definition and value. How could I have expected it to be as good as the original painting when I clearly knew it was fake?
Prior to this, I had purchased a replica canvas print of Van Gogh’s Almond Blossoms, which is now hanging on my bedroom wall. Whilst this also lacks detail, it is definitely better than a simple print. So, I was really expecting the Starry Night canvas replica to be similar.
The fact is that with art in general there’s only one original in the entire world. This is what makes the original so valuable. But since MoMA’s clearly not going to sell the Starry Night any time soon, nor would I at this point be able to afford it even if they did decide to auction it off, I figured why not just settle for the replica (i.e. the fake)?
Throughout my earlier adult years, I’ve been settling and essentially leading a fake lifestyle that on the surface appeared every bit as rich and vibrant as an original Van Gogh. In hindsight, I was just mortgaging my future for the present – I was living a replica lifestyle. It started when I was at university. Being one of the unfortunate few at my university who wasn’t a trust fund baby or daughter-of-somebody, I knew what it meant to struggle financially – working my way through college and not knowing if I could make next semester’s tuition. The journey has nonetheless made me see I have financial survival skills and on the whole, I’ve been able to do it ethically. At the same time, that uncertainty is still embedded in my mindset even though I’m clearly not that girl any more.
I went from having a seriously negative net worth to a pretty positive albeit illiquid net worth. By next spring, all of my salary will be going towards my savings account rather than to my student loans, which have thus far made me an unwilling and unhappy indentured servant to the bank with no financial freedom. No matter how much you love your job and other aspects of your life, if there’s a financial sandbag tying you down, how can you actually and realistically be able to give life your all? You’ll feel the strain and it’ll reflect in all your interactions. I think it’s the same with a mortgage – as long as you owe someone somewhere something, you’ll never actually be financially free.
I reckon I’ll be able to save at least 63% of my salary after expenses and taxes every year thereafter. I know I’m going to be one of those people who are 70% cash and 30% investments all the time even though I’ve still got decades before retirement. I’ll get laughed at, but I don’t care. It took me almost eight years to be on the verge of actually claiming my financial freedom, but I’m totally doing it. As much as I wanted to prove myself to people around me, I proved myself to myself more than anything by finally knuckling down and making the right financial choices.
I had an interesting conversation with my forex broker recently during which he yawned and subtly indicated that I probably should deposit more money into my account in the same breath (nice touch, isn’t it, but I just couldn't bring myself to tell him off. This guy deserves a special mention in my trading journal for showing me the importance of asset protection...). He also mentioned that I was always looking to be right on the majority of my trades, which is causing me to miss a lot of opportunities. He may have a point there, but at the same time, I don’t want to just settle for any trade. I want to make sure I get the details of every trade right and that probability is in my favour with every trade.
There’s the expectation that you need to sacrifice your percentage of wins in order to profit in the forex market. That could be true for a lot of other traders. However, I don’t necessarily agree that that is the only way to improve. Suppose I’m a selective trader and I end up making very small gains on a lot of trades. The key for me is actually not to become less selective and sacrifice my wins.
What I need to actually work on now is to let myself take more profits on an increasing number of trades that I am right. I am finding it possible to limit losses with a stop. However, with my take-profit points, it seems to be like a box of chocolates in that you never know what you’re going to get.
What I want to experiment with is to turn my trailing stop into my exit strategy on a number of trades in the future. I will only do this with a percentage of my trades and experiment with multiple entries / multiple exits, single entry / single exit, multiple entries / single exit to see which turns out to be the most profitable.
Continue to keep your discipline and let the losers chip away at your account with the least possible impact. But also allow yourself to incrementally improve your gains on your high probability trade setups.
There was a guy on ForexFactory that posted his story about turning a low four figure sum into a six figure sum in two weeks. Everyone was laughing at him. In fact, we should examine what he’s doing right. That guy put himself out there and shared what he was doing right, but we instead turned around and laughed at him.
There’s a tendency for people to misjudge others who seem to be the odd one out. But if we look at the ones we’re laughing at in hindsight, they often turn out to be the Vincent Van Goghs of the world – the ones who are bold enough to go against the trend and end up producing masterpieces; the ones who end up being like Warren Buffett, George Soros, Carl Icahn, or Bill Gross. They are the ones who actually have the edge and aren’t fakin’ it because they see the world differently and are not afraid to implement their strategies accordingly.
I totally agree with Warren Buffett that “the first rule of investing is don’t lose money; the second rule is don’t forget rule # 1.”
I do over-analyse every trade. I want to make sure I’m accountable to myself first and foremost and that I’m really not just fakin’ it anymore. There’s just so much hypocrisy out there and I don’t want to be a part of it. I really want to keep it sincere.
Now, it is highly liberating to be able to say to myself: “I’ve actually got cash to pay for that.”
So saving’s my new mantra.
Hermes, here I come!
Or am I contradicting myself again?
Whatever… once a shopaholic – always a shopaholic.
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