Wednesday, August 14, 2024

I almost died yesterday

Life lessons from avoiding disaster
 
   
     
   
 
AUGUST 14, 2024
   

It was 5:30 PM and I was tired and ready to get home…

Yesterday was a HOT day here in Jacksonville and I had foolishly decided to take a one mile walk by the office before I started my drive. 20 minutes and about 7,000 degrees later, I was in my car, a sweaty, exhausted mess.

I’ll admit, I wasn’t super focused on what I was doing. It’s the same drive home you make every day, right? What could happen…

I pulled into the turn lane to hop on the state highway that would deliver me almost to my front door. 

As usual, the traffic in the adjacent lane was backed up and stopped dead, but the turn lane is always wide open. So I merged over and started to hit the gas.

I must have been going about 30 MPH when it happened…

I looked up, and suddenly, a truck was merging into my lane from a complete stop, either totally unaware or completely indifferent to my proximity. 

And this wasn’t a tiny truck… this was a BIG moving truck that would have shaved the top off of my car and, in all probability, off of me.
 
 

I had a split second to avoid at best a totaled car and some severe whiplash and at worst, well… I don’t even want to think about it…
 
 
 
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I slammed on my breaks. I twisted the wheel as far as I could without driving off the shoulder and down the small hill to my right into the woods.

I also slammed on my horn. I also probably uttered some choice words that I’d rather not repeat here. 

And then… it was all fine.

I stopped, avoided disaster, and, albeit a little shaken, went on with my day as normal.

I don’t know if the driver of the other car ever knew what happened. I’m sure he heard my horn but beyond that… he might still be oblivious. 

But I’ve been reflecting on the experience ever since, and it’s made me take away a few lessons that I think are important for traders to learn, too: 

First, always be prepared for the unexpected

Maybe it goes without saying but there’s chaos in everyday life, and there’s chaos in the markets.

A random car, an unexpected diagnosis, a happy surprise, or even having fewer eggs than you thought you did… these things can change the trajectory of our days or even our lives.

In the markets, we live and die for the unexpected. And while there’s no crystal ball, you have to make sure your strategies account for outcomes you didn’t see coming.

Second, you can only worry about your OWN vehicle

This goes back to a point I made in yesterday’s newsletter…

You are the only one who can come to rescue you. 

We put a lot of emphasis on the CPI, on the Federal Reserve, on who will be the next President, and these things are important…

But we can’t ultimately control them any more than I could have made that truck not steer into my lane unexpectedly. 

So you need to focus on what you can do. If there’s a bad CPI print. If the Fed doesn’t cut rates. If the person you don’t like becomes President.

These things can only affect you as much as you let them. So stop focusing on external factors and focus on yourself! 

(By the way, that’s one of the reasons I love working with our experts, because they’re not politicians and they don’t have an agenda. They just want to help traders like you succeed!) 

Third, the safety mechanisms we have in place (usually) work

Cars come with brakes for a reason. And they’re really, really darn good at what they do.

The market has a lot of stop gaps in place, and measures to help us avoid calamity. And we have tools at our disposal (more on that in a moment) that can help save us if worst comes to worst.

Trust the process.

Yes, “Black Swans” are real and they can be a serious threat…
 
 
But most of the time, the safeguards are going to work. So why worry about forces outside of your control? 

It’s no more helpful than trying to anticipate what every car on every road you drive on is going to do. You can try, but you’ll fail. So just worry about your own car and react to changes when they come.

Fourth and finally, the right tools can save you, but you have to do the work

And building on that theme, I am so proud of the many incredible tools that our traders and experts use. 

Whether it’s Jeffry’s major breakthrough Apollo, or one of the custom indicators Nate, Graham, and Geof have built for some of their programs.

In a few days, I’m gonna even get to tell you about a new breakthrough from Jack Carter that could predict the next crash (wish I’d had that last night!) 

And these tools are amazing. More than worth the money in my opinion, and more than worth the time and expense our geniuses have put into creating them.

But, again, a tool is just a tool… just like a car is just a car…
 
 
A paintbrush in my hands is more likely to be a weapon of destruction than an instrument of art. But in Da Vinci’s, it was a portal to the divine. 

Trading tools are a resource for us, but we have to put them to work. In the coming days, you’ll hear a lot more about one of the best trading tools I’ve ever seen, and I want you to pay close attention! 

I’m just glad I’m still around to tell you about it! 

But remember: no tool is the solution. YOU are the solution. 

If you can adopt that mindset, I think it’ll change the way you approach the markets.

To your prosperity,

Stephen Ground
Editor-in-Chief, ProsperityPub
 
   
 
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