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Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
Have you ever watched the TV game show ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’, and asked yourself, despite the fact that it only takes 15 questions to reach a million: why aren't there more millionaire winners?
The programme's producers seem to be risking huge amounts of money each show. But are they? They know that despite the fact that each contestant on each and every show has the potential to hit the jackpot, very few actually will.
Some people fail because they just don't know the answers to the questions. Others agonise long and hard over the risk-reward ratio, decide it just isn't worth risking what they have already accumulated and bail out early. Others will fail, because they become distracted by their feelings and roller coasting emotions: “Will I be a millionaire winner or an unsatisfied loser?”
Game show contestants, unlike experienced traders, are not acclimatised to losing; and are unlikely to become so during the course of their ‘15 minutes of fame’. They don’t learn how to extend the boundaries of their comfort zone balancing potential losses against possible big wins – an ordinary everyday experience for a trader.
However, just like traders, as the stakes rise so does the adrenaline and any trader worth his salt will tell you emotional trading is bad trading. Overstretching to make that potential big killing or becoming overconfident and risking it all is just like the contestant who doesn't know the answer.
Of course you have to speculate to accumulate; but the most important part of speculating isn't prediction as some people think, but learning self-control.
Just like ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’, trading can be both difficult and frustrating. As Chris Tarrant says "There are no trick questions, you either know the answer or you don't." Trading isn't rocket science, but it is about knowing which answers are the correct ones. It is about discipline and it is about self-control: it is also about managing your emotions and setting yourself (and your day) up to win, right from the word go!
How do you achieve this? You need a plan. I saw the show where Judith Keppel was the first contestant to win a million. She had a plan, apart of that plan was not to accept any amount less than a million; and I noticed that despite the fact that as her winnings increased (and she must have been taken well outside the limits of her usual comfort zone) she remained calm, stayed confident in her answers and abilities and stuck to her guns. She walked away a millionaire! Not bad going for half an hours work!
Who wants to be a millionaire? Do you?
© Jeff Turner
