Earlier this year I took on a new project. As you may or may not have remembered I recently purchased a collection of books titled “Great Books of the Western World”. It is a massive collection of material from the greatest minds that have ever lived. When you look at the entire collection it is very daunting to think about getting through to reading all those books but there is a 10 year plan that was suggested and I figured I might have a chance to get through the 10 year plan hopefully within my life. So I have begun with my reading and as I make my way through the material
I am constantly being reminded of how important it is to know how to learn and to learn how to think. More today than ever before the importance of knowing how to think on your own is vital to make your way through life unharmed and successfully.
With this I will tell you that knowing how to learn and how to think on your own is also a skill a serious trader needs to have. Recently I posted an article on the school forum and it’s called “The Academic Abuse of Quantity Over Quality”. It’s an article I read in my Epoch Times newspaper a couple weeks back and as I read it I felt it was so important for the students here at the school to read it as well.
Why is that?
I have seen many students come to the school and there focus is to get to the next level of education as quickly as possible without realizing that getting a proper education in any subject of real value takes time. It is not something you can rush into doing, I mean you can rush it I suppose but you will never properly absorb it. I know from my own personal experience that there are lessons I’ve been taught by the markets that have taken my years to see, understand and then be able to use to my advantage. Even though the information was right there in front of my face, I did not see it for what it truly was.
Getting back to my reading, I have been learning a lot about myself and how the mind works. I have come to appreciate the amazing way we learn and how to tap into this power and use it to our benefit. Another incredible skill every trader must learn is the ability to do research. To collect data, to review it, to determine its validity and to be able to take on information into your knowledge base and to be able to take out pieces of information as well.
Too many times we have information in our knowledge base that we allowed to be in there but it takes up the spot for real information that is more in line with reality than what is currently there and unless we are will to except that we may be wrong some times, we will not be able to switch out false info for true information.
I see this very often these days and the thing is most people are not open to learning and not open to accepting new things. I have read that people are scared of new things, they like what it is they know. The thing is though if they only knew what they could know then they would not be so stubborn in their reserve.
You don’t know what you don’t know – as they say – and for this reason you owe it to yourself to find out what that is!
Kevin Araujo