A Garden Is Not For Show
"First practice not letting people know who you are — keep your philosophy to yourself for a bit. In just the manner that fruit is produced — the seed buried for a season, hidden, growing gradually so it may come to full maturity. But if the grain sprouts before the stalk is fully developed, it will never ripen. . . . That is the kind of plant you are, displaying fruit too soon, and the winter will kill you."
— Epictetus, Discourses
If we look at today's meditation from a trading perspective, we are seeing a very similar theme here.
We are not trading to impress others. We are trading to hopefully become profitable in the long term to be able to provide for ourselves, in a sort of self-sufficient way.
Some may go a step further and become full time traders, using their profits as their sole income. Others (like myself) may use their trading income to become part time in their occupation and part time trading. Then there may be some who use their trading profits to treat themselves to special holidays, treats, or even save for a rainy day or pension pot etc. etc. We are all different in what we want to achieve from our trading journeys.
Growing as a trader means that it becomes a pure and profitable use of your time. All those hours of practice, turning up every day and executing your strategy, managing each and every trade to completion, will pay you back ten fold; both in monetary terms and in self-satisfaction of a job well done!
All this confidence and consistency, from the repetitive process of trading over and over again, means that when you are in a difficult trade that isn't going your way, you will be able to deal with it swiftly and decisively, before it becomes unmanageable and a threat to your trading bank.
Because you have put the hard work in to nurture your trading, you are prepared for whatever the market throws at you.
Or, as the last line of today's meditation states and I quote; "You are prepared and sturdy for the hard winters of life"
Just as "A garden is not for show"; the same applies to trading.