Finding Myself Beyond the Trading Floor
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Over the last 7 years, I have exclusively focused on trading. Well, to be fair, it's more so the last 5 years. The first 2 years as a retail trader, I had one of those so called "well-rounded lives". I traded, went out often, hung out after the close with friends & fam, enjoyed snowboarding, camping, and mountain biking more than most.
But, over the last 5 years as a professional trader living in NY and ATX and working out of both offices, I gave up everything, one by one to focus entirely on the market. I did so without even truly recognizing it was taking place.
Sure, when I first started working at the firm, I had some fun for a bit. My closest prop trader friend at the time would often drag me out of my small NYC apartment or the office on 5th avenue to enjoy the city, the night life, and well, everything in between. As time progressed, I just started saying "no" to it all and he grew entirely annoyed of myself and rightfully so!
Fast forward a bit and we are at the end of 2023 and I have been living in ATX for the last couple of years working out of our office there and I am overly depressed. For whatever reason, I felt like all I had was trading.
Most days, after the trading day is done, I am just sitting in the office or my house all alone trying to review. My friends in the Bay Area are settling down with their booothangs, some are getting married and meanwhile, I am having commitment issues. A number of terrible hookups later and a few uncommitted relationships and I've just had enough. So, after finally opening up to my parents about just how unhappy I had become, I did something unexpected by most and I left the firm.
I needed to get away from this toxic work environment (much of it was self-inflected) in which the only thing that mattered was the scoreboard! I am still actively trading the market, but my time in front of the screens has reduced from 12-15 hour days 7 days a week to just 1-2 hours per day 5 days a week.
Now, I am working on just being a "normal f*cking person". I want to find love, I don't need to listen to every damn podcast or trade review, I don't need to choose reviewing my tape vs watching something good on TV, instead, I just want to focus on being normal and being out of the office!
Normal is cool.
So, this is where I decided to change my reading up a bit and pick up How To Be Loved by Humble The Poet... It felt needed!
Right off the rip, one thing came to my mind as I poured through the first few pages. I need to love myself first. Up until recently, this wasn't the case. My focus was on trading and that was it. A good day wasn't great because someone made more. A bad day was a result of me being a f*cking idiot. My entire thought process was so incredibly negative that I eventually became a house of cards emotionally in which I just needed out!
Looking back, I think part of this drive was due to just coming up short with my collegiate career playing Baseball. I wanted to fill that void by being the very best at trading. And anything short of that, led to incredible depression.
Now, I don't feel that way. Good is great in the world of trading, you don't need to waste your time looking over your shoulder or overly obsessing over that next milestone.
When we become self-aware, we realize there is no finish line, so instead of trying to win the race, we should enjoy running it.
Up until recently, I just couldn't comprehend this.
If I am constantly waiting to be the best trader, be the most in shape, have the most confidence, I'll be waiting for ever to truly love myself. This type of thought process reminds me of the sign that hangs in the Lahontan Golf club in Truckee at the men's bar:
You show up each day only to realize the sign is still the same and guess what, no free beer! You can't get so caught up in the future that you forget to enjoy this very moment! There is no finish line, so just enjoy the present, forget the future (be responsible) and your life will continue to improve.
I'll end this with a couple additional quotes that I ended up jotting down while reading How To Be Loved!
You don't have to be perfect to be loved. In fact, perfect is the enemy of love.
Make space for the shitty feelings - Let go and feel them, cry them out, write them out, scream them out.
Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this post in which I opened up just a tad bit about some of my struggles outside of the market that I continue to work on! Just know, you aren't alone with whatever it is that you are going through. I'm always happy to talk. Feel free to email me at kylevallans@gmail.com