What can you learn from Journey to the westALOT !
Have you ever came across “Journey to the west”.
Journey to the West is a Chinese novel published in the 16th century during the Ming dynasty and attributed to Wu Cheng'en. It is regarded as one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature, and has been described as arguably the most popular literary work in East Asia
Short summary:
The plot revolves around Buddhist monk Xuanzang, who travels west to India with his four disciples, including the famous monkey king Sun Wukong, in search for holy scriptures. The other protagonists are the half-pig and half-monk Zhu Bajie and the water monster Sha Wujing.
Everyone’s interpretation of the story is different which makes this more interesting.
I would like to use this classic novel to illustrate one’s journey to peak trading performance aka = becoming rich, financial freedom or whatever goals you wanted out from trading. And in the novel’s context is to obtain the holy scriptures.
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Character
Tripitaka aka Tang Sanzang ( also refers to YOU the trader )
His goal is to obtain the holy scriptures ( monetary goals / your financial freedom ). But as a monk, he is unskilled unlike his disciplines who can fight demons except he is the leader of the group. He has a clear goal but he will face many obstacles ahead. His job is to gather help & transform his disciplines ( your emotions / flaws ) leverage their skills and expertise to obtain the holy scriptures.
Sun Wukong or Monkey God ( your lack of patience / arrogance / fear of not being right )
Sun Wukong is the eldest disciple and the most skilful.
He knows 72 transformation (can transform into many forms)
He can create great damages when he is angry, like someone with anger management issues
Sun work fast and act fast based on his own instinct and doesn't have much regards for SOPs ( trading plans).
He is impatience, arrogance and often get into trouble and the needs to be right.
( early entry / refuses to cut loss / turn small loss into big loss just because of the need to be right )
Zhu Bajie or Pigsy ( your greed / fear of missing out / your laziness to seek to continuous learning)
Pigsy is 2nd in command and is not as skilled as Sun. As he is half pig, half human and he is often distracted by greed, food, lust and laziness among other things.
His greediness and fear of missing out often hinder the team’s progress during the journey.
He is always tempted by temporary rewards and lust along the way, often not looking at bigger picture. ( short term profit taking and missed out the bigger trend, FOMO into something you did not do any research or know about and trade what the gurus / finwits are telling you without knowing their motivation, entry or exit ). You are simply too lazy to do your own research.
Sha Wujing or Sandy ( not taking calculated risk / lack of confidence / fear of leaving money on the table / not sticking to the rules )
Sandy is the character in the story who doesn't talk a lot, carries the team's luggage and he would only speak when he needs to and mostly tells the truth about the situation. He is very timid and often sway by the opinion of others’ influence ( finwits / news / rumours / earnings ). He will follow suit ( close position / take pre-mature profit ) based on other’s opinion. He seems like one who doesn’t take risk and lack of confidence. ( your lack of research and back-tests leads to your low confidence to take trades when the signal appear and often missed out the entire trend!) The worst feeling in the world is knowing what is going to happen next but didn’t do anything about it.
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Throughout the journey, these are the issued faced by all the Tripitaka aka Tang Sanzang’s and his job ( your job as a trader ) is to evaluate each disciplines' flaws ( your emotions and flaws ), correct them and create a harmonious flow of team work between one another.
And I quote “ If you define the problem correctly, you almost have the solution.” – Steve Jobs
Of course, they eventually obtained the holy scriptures. I think the bigger take away was never the holy scriptures. It was to find yourself and to be the best you can be.
So is to trading. Many successful traders started out by wanting to be rich ( whatever goals ). Then they realized the true meaning of GOALS. GOALS = The process is more rewarding than the PRIZE.
I wish you best and hope you enjoy my sharing.
