Trust, But Verify
"First off, don't let the force of the impression carry you away. Say to it, 'hold up a bit and let me see who you are and where you are from — let me put you to the test' . . ."
— Epictetus, Discourses
Another interesting meditation today and it makes sense when you also think of this in a trading context!
We have rules/criteria to follow that make up our strategies and we know that as long as we follow our rules to the letter 100% of the time, we will be right many more times than we will be wrong. This is because we are using the stats/data that we have available to us, to make our informed choices on each and every trade that we make.
Basically we are:
1) "Trust" Placing our trust in the stats/data.
2) "Verify" Making sure any potential trades can be verified by fully meeting the rules/criteria for our strategy.
In addition to this, we also go one step further and this is to execute and manage our trades to completion.
By completion, I mean taking our targeted pre-event profit, or cutting short a losing trade at our pre-agreed exit point.
By cutting short any trades that are going against us early enough, for a controlled loss, our more regular successful trades will ensure long term profitability.
Remember we are not playing a get rick quick scheme here. This takes time, so patience and discipline are required in abundance, because slow and steady wins the race!
We cannot cut corners or bend the rules and there are no short cuts. If we put in the hard and at times laborious work, we will be rewarded for our efforts, in the long run.