The Trader Mentality vs. the Builder Paradigm

When people ask me to describe myself I often say that I am a reformed trader who has become a builder. That may sound somewhat trite but for me it explains a fundamental paradigm shift / change that I’ve made in my life:

In my trading days, I bought and sold things (stocks, bonds, derivatives, information).

Trading was fun, entertaining, electrifying and exciting.

It was the ultimate thrill ride.

It allowed me to connect to many people, many markets and many events in the World.  It offered me the opportunity to profit from insights, knowledge and intuition. It offered me the opportunity to travel the World and sample the good life across four continents. It cut through all the bullshit and politics.  Each day was a new day with it’s own P&L and with the joys of mark-to-market, my bank balance changed on a daily basis. There was no politics, no meetings, no drudgery, no BS.

So much for the upside! The life of a trader has a dark side too. My mood swings were legendary and my friends, family and colleagues began to read the state of the markets based on my mood.  Things lost their value. Everything in the World became a commodity that had a price. If I wanted a new car, a new house, a new ___, I thought of it in terms of how many points I needed to make on a trade.

I had lost my humanity to the market. It was time to step away and redefine my life.

It has been 16 years since my life as a derivatives trader.  Since then I have built companies, brands and teams.

In the past 8 months, I’ve been focused on building a new product / service that will be the first creation / “incubatee” of JazLabs and I’ve learned so much.  I’ve reawakened dormant skills and attributes within myself and discovered and developed new ones:

• Building takes time. It takes a lot of time and effort to create something of value – something that is exceptional and new.  Way, way more time than you may initially think.
• Building requires a team. I am lucky to have a business partner who is smart, hard-working and diligent.  We have complementary skills and interests and push each other to reach higher every day.
• Building takes patience. I’m probably the most impatient person you have ever met and I have really struggled to learn this one.  You need to prototype, test and rebuild if you want to get to that exceptional customer experience that is required for success and patience is a major key to success.
• Building takes focus. No more time for Twitter. No more time for continuous partial attention.  Only time to focus on the task at hand and completing it in the best way possible. (Dear David letter)
• Building requires getting into the details.  This is an obvious one and one where I initially struggled the most.  No room for the quick-fix. You have to get dirty and dig into the details but always within the context of the overall plan / 10,000 foot view of there you’re going.
• Building needs to be done fast. Deadlines (self-imposed or external-imposed) are a vital constraint to bring out creativity and ingenuity. We’re building a business and we can’t afford to ignore market pressures / competitive pressures.
• Building takes you on a journey into yourself.  I’ve discovered untapped resources and abilities that I never knew I had.

Now it’s time to take the best parts of the trader mentality and the best parts of the building paradigm and merge them together to take me to the next level of my journey of discovery!