My first article published ever in here is „Being valuable and doing what drives you“. Recently I have recognized that it deals with two topics: Valuation and drive. These two things can be the same. But that´s not necessarily the case. They can also be different. In other words, what drives you is not necessarily valuable. And what´s valuable is not necessarily being turned into action if there is no driving force present.
For that reason I would like to dedicate this article to the first part of the headline. Being valuable. Since a while that is what is occurring in my mind. Probably because I have detected two areas in my life where in the past I did not behave valuable or at least not to that extent that I would consider it to be valuable.
Between 2013 and 2018 one of my major interest and my major activity was in making money at the regulated capital markets. It deeply fulfilled me. I was confronted with challenging and sophisticating situations. In this relation I have successfully managed risky situations. Dealing with these situations served as an intellectual and enlightening activity. To sum it up, thinking about making money and turning it into action was triggering my emotions.
Making money for my own benefit
However something from the inside was calling that I´m not interested in making that my main profession for the rest of my life. Besides the positive aspects as mentioned above following the occupation of a trader would have also mean loneliness due to less contact to people and uncertainty due to variable income.
But nowadays I assume that I have figured out the real reason for not becoming a full time trader. The point is that I don´t feel that I was behaving valuable during that time. Yes. Due to the positive aspects mentioned above there is no doubt that I was behaving valuable for myself. But I´m referring to the other form of being valuable. I´m referring to being valuable to other people.
In short, the valuation I provided while trading the capital markets was limited to taking risk from people who were seeking security and to provide liquidity to the capital markets. Liquidity is important as it leads to stable capital markets and more calculable prices which is important to make global economies work. However as I was trading a minor amount of contracts I did not create a significant impact in terms of liquidity.
That´s why I was not able to give myself credits for providing liquidity. When I acted as a trader I was never telling to myself You´re doing something good. In a positive sense at least I was also never thinking You´re doing something bad. In sum, I obtained a deep understanding in terms of financial aspects, I have engaged in profound conversations with smart people and I have experienced a deep increase in terms of my self development. However I did not behave in a valuable way towards other people.
Producing music for my own benefit
The second aspect to mention here is producing music. During the recent years I have written a variety of songs. As the majority has not been released yet I assume that I have mainly written them and recording several demos mainly for myself. Although there were a few people who partially mentioned very positive aspects in terms of my first acoustic album which I had released in 2018 I only showed the album to ten people. I did not make any promotion. I did not play the songs live. Again, I did not behave in a valuable way towards other people.
That being said it seems that my primary intention was in creating and providing the music. Not in acting as a marketeer. During that time I never produced music based on the current trends. I solely produced music which I wanted to produce. I solely wrote songs which were coming out from my inside. The whole process of making music during the recent years was solely in capturing my moods and turning them into words and melodies. It was incredibly satisfactory. Hence there´s no doubt that I was behaving valuable for myself. But again, I did not behave in a valuable way towards other people.
The act of generating benefit
Both of the aspects mentioned have one thing in common. Trading on the capital markets as well as producing music was mainly for my own benefit. For example, the goal to achieve for a trader is to make money. That´s the benefit. In this context the goal to achieve for a creative person is to create something. That´s the benefit. Nowadays I think that in terms of trading the relative amount of money made is not that relevant. The real benefit or better say the main satisfaction is gained by comparing the amount to self imposed goals or by comparing the amount to what other traders take out of the markets. Let´s get this a more detailed view.
Achieving my goal
It was at the beginning of 2014 when I showed my first paper trading accounts to a friend. Paper trading means that the money traded is not real. The purpose of a paper trading account is to get firm with a new trading platform or to test strategies. I was showing my trades to my friend which were running that moment. Some of them were deep in profit. Imagine this was real money. That´s what I was telling to my friend. During that moment I felt the impression that if I will ever be able to realize these profits with real money then I can give myself real credits for that. I assume that this was the main goal which I intended to achieve. It seems that this achieving this goal acted as my main driving force.
Some years later I had made it. The money on the trading account was not fake anymore. It was real money. Hence the trades which were now running into deep profit were equal to real profit at the moment when I closed them. In this relation I had achieved my self imposed goal. It started with Imagine this was real money and ended with closing profitable trades as part of a real money trading account. From today´s perspective my self imposed goal was incredibly low. But that does not change the fact that I have achieved something which once I considered as being incredible. I deemed it as Blowing the mind away if I would turn that successfully into reality.
Donating money
So by achieving my self imposed goal I had successfully blown my mind away. After that I felt the deep motivation to give something back. As a conclusion in 2017 I donated a part of my total annual profit. From a monetary perspective it was not much. At least from today´s perspective. However as I assume that there´s a variety of people out there who have never donated at least one cent in their entire life my donation is justified. The point is that although the amount I have donated was not a fortune it supported the organization which I wanted to receive support. This is what counts and nothing else.
I´m mentioning my donation as by donating some of my profits that was the first time that in terms of my trading activities I was behaving valuable towards other people. The act of donating money regardless of it´s monetary level felt right from a moral perspective. Hence it felt good. But as mentioned in „Not growing rich yet“, donation does not work as a driving force for me. I´m aware that nowadays I could simply choose working as a trader and donating my entire profits to good organizations. Although it´s tough to argue against that this would not be valuable it does not work for me. As a conclusion I´m still searching for what to deliver which will truly be valuable for other people AND for myself.
Holy words
I´m glad that I have commenced thinking about valuation. I´m glad that I have figured out that I was missing behaving valuable to other people while focusing on trading the capital markets as well as producing music during the recent years. In this context it´s worth to mention that I´m not thinking about quitting finance or quitting music. But going forward in terms of both activities the direction or better say the focus requires amendment.
To sum it up, I feel a deep motivation to align both activities into a direction so that they will be valuable for other people. In other words, currently I feel a deep interest in holding back my ego in order to serve other people. The impression is reaching my mind that it will be satisfactory to do so. I´m aware that it´s just an assumption. But currently I do not think that I will ever regret if going forward I decide to behave valuable for other people. People´s names who have spent their entire life by focusing on their own needs and constantly pushing their ego to the foreground are long forgotten. People´s names who have served other people are well remembered.
Any thoughts on this can be sent privately to send@realthoughts.me or publicly via the comment function below
Martin
*Affiliate-Link