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Joseph Schooling is an amazing athlete, winning the Gold Medal at the Olympics, in a pool with the likes of Chad le Clos, Laszlo Cseh and possibly the greatest Olympian of all time, Michael Phelps! Singaporeans everywhere cheered when he touched the edge of the pool first, making a new Olympic record time for the 100m butterfly in the process.

But we should also acknowledge not just the win, but for even being at the Olympics in the first place. Did you know Singapore has another swimmer who qualified to be at Rio 2016? His name is Quah Zheng Wen, and we should certainly applaud his achievement to be at the Olympics!

Everyone loves a winner, but WIN isn't the only thing we should pay attention to. Especially for us traders. The trade we see might be a loser, but for us, that will just be part of the game. Our achievement is not just seen in one trade, the work we do behind each winner and loser going to be the same, we just need to pick up the emotional pieces, review and move on the the next trade.

Here are 3 key things which Joseph Schooling did at Rio which we can learn as traders:

Strategic play.

He participated in the 100m freestyle event but did not fare so well and could not qualify for the finals. After that he was perfectly fine with it.

Isn't it strange that he competed but didn't mind not performing well and qualifying for the finals?

He even says that he didn't even train for the event, for him to actually say that, tells us a lot.

Clearly, his objective wasn't to win the 100m freestyle event. He simply wanted the exposure to the conditions in the Olympic pool in front of a really huge audience, with massive media coverage with cameras everywhere underwater and above water. He wanted to get the first time jitters out of the way so he could focus on his pet event, the 100m butterfly.

He traded his time for exposure to the exact conditions of his perfect setup.

This is sort of like demo trading to familiarize yourself with the trading platform's charting facilities and execution functionalities.

It's an extremely smart move Joseph.

Tip: Don't stay on Demo for too long, it does nothing for your emotional training. Just use it to get familiar with a new strategy or platform.

"…I’m in control for the fly, that’s for sure."

This is what he said right after his 100m freestyle race, finding out that he didn't really swim his best and failed to qualify for the final 8. For someone who just looked at a loss in the face, he sounds extremely confident doesn't he?

This confidence comes not from fluff, it's from the huge amounts of work that he put in prior to even coming to Rio. I'm not talking about the effort of taking swimming classes at 6 years old and then doing 4 years of specialist training after seeing Phelps beat everyone out of the water in London 2012. No.

Joseph Schooling was inspired at a tender 6 years of age. 7 years ago, at 14 years of age, he had moved to study in the United States just so he could train under the two-time U.S. Olympic men’s head coach Eddie Reese.

That's where his confidence comes from.

It comes from the hard work he did and results prior to Rio.

To us traders, it's our preparation in terms of analysis and screen time with real money, and backtesting and forward testing. Some of us need 6 months of training before we become profitable. Some need 3 years. While some need 7 years. It's dependent on the individual.

However, there are some ways to speed up the process, such as:

1. By doing quality work. I mean really focus on the things you should be doing or not doing, review, analyze, track your emotions before, during and after a trade, etc. Identify areas which need improvement, coming up with solutions and taking consistent action.
2. Get a mentor to guide you. Someone who is qualified to point you in the right direction.

Tip: Acknowledge that you need time, then equip yourself with tools for the journey and just give it time while putting in the effort.

Sacrifices.

He dropped out of the 200m butterfly to save energy for the 100m butterfly.

Lazy sunday mornings?

Gone.

Doing review/analysis/backtesting etc. Takes 1-2 hours depending on what your routine is. Might take more time if you need to scroll through a lot of charts or if you do a lot of intermarket analysis. Work is done during the trading week in the form of keeping up with the price movements at levels of interest or watching/reading major news. Like being aware of government interest rate expectations helps position yourself for news events or longer swings.

Got to find time during the weekend, to do your analysis/reviewing or backtesting

Trust me, it's worth it. When you're looking at 3 losses in a row, you need that confidence to take the 4th trade setup in exactly the same way, knowing that you will be putting in a new equity high in the coming weeks.

Tip:Sometimes helps to break up the routine into 2 parts. Because the review biases may affect the analysis. So usually I split them up, one on saturday and one on sunday, it's easier to plan my schedule as well.

The post Joseph Schooling Just Demonstrated At Rio, How We Can Be Successful Traders! appeared first on The Systematic Trader | Trading Courses | Collin Seow.