Ep 136: Anmol Singh ~ Risk, Integrity & Emotional Discipline

Have you ever considered how trading on Wall Street might teach you life-changing principles of integrity and emotional control?  Anmol Singh, an exceptionally talented trader and a sage in the realm of Trading Psychology, joins me to navigate the trenches of the stock market's psychological warfare and unearth how Anmol's collegiate epiphany on integrity became the cornerstone of his success, both personally and professionally.  Our exchange promises to leave you with a new appreciation for the deliberate integration of integrity into your daily experience.

Anmol's journey from dorm-room day-trading to crafting impactful financial articles laid the foundation for his business acumen. His candid revelations about the highs and lows of his first trading year, where profits were elusive, and emotions ran high, hold invaluable lessons. He imparts wisdom on achieving emotional discipline, revealing that the delicate balance between detachment in trading and empathy in life is not just possible but necessary. Anmol's insights aren't merely academic musings; they're battle-tested strategies that teach us about life's broader financial and emotional ecosystems.

Anmol's book "Prepping for Success," evolved from personal musings to an imperative blueprint for integrity in all spheres. Our conversation culminates with Anmol's guidance on navigating moral complexities with clarity and how calculated risks can boost one's self-esteem. His expertise isn't confined to our dialogue; follow his wisdom on Instagram and Twitter as Delta90, and dive into his book for a deeper understanding of the psychological fortitude required for leadership and personal growth in the tumultuous seas of finance and beyond.

Where to find Anmol & his book "Prepping for Success":
https://instagram.com/deltaninety   

https://twitter.com/DeltaNinety

https://preppingforsuccess.com

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Truth and Transcendence, brought to you by being Space with Katherine Llewellyn. Truth and Transcendence, episode 136, with special guest Ann Mull. Sing If you haven't come across Ann Mull. He is actually considered the leading expert in the trading psychology space, having helped thousands of traders all over the world, dealing with psychological and behavioral issues that arise when high stakes are on the line. Ann Mull brings a unique view on success and shows how the same concepts that he's used to help million-dollar traders are applicable to our day-to-day lives, irrespective of the industry or career we may be in An Ann Mull's book, prepping for Success is now available on Audible on Amazon, and there'll be a link below through which you can find that.

Speaker 1: 1:11

So that's exciting as well. So why did I invite Ann Mull onto Truth and Transcendence? Well, for many of us and I, to be honest, include myself working with risk can be a bit of a mystery and potentially can be terrifying, and I believe that our lack of understanding in this area causes us all sorts of problems and also interferes with our creativity and expansion. So I was really interested in what Ann Mull has to say, because he's taken a deep dive into these issues and now teaches others to engage with them effectively. So, in my opinion, ann Mull's understanding, coming from personal experience, is extremely valuable to any of us who wish to continue our own expansion, and I'm not just talking about people in the trading space, just anyone in their own lives. So, ann Mull, I'm just delighted you were able to come onto the show today. Thank you for coming.

Speaker 2: 2:08

Thanks for inviting me and looking forward to chatting with you.

Speaker 1: 2:11

Cool. So when we spoke before, we came up with a theme of integrity, because Ann Mull told me that integrity was a really core theme in relation to a lot of the work that he does and it's also a favorite theme of mine. I think we all know that integrity is very important. I think we all know in our gut when we compromise our own integrity. We can try and hide from that, but we know it deep down and we all know how great it feels when we actually follow and are congruent with our own integrity. So just in our own lives we have a direct experience of this already. So I was really interested, ann Mull, in you coming on and talking about this more deeply from your perspective. So let me just kick off with my favorite first question that I ask everybody, which is when you look back, can you remember when you first realized that integrity was particularly significant, out of interest to you?

Speaker 2: 3:13

Yeah, for me I think it started off in college. Growing up I was a really chubby kid and not really working out, not doing any of that. So for me it was more so a thing off. I kept telling myself, oh, I'm going to get back in shape, or I'm going to start working out, or I'm going to start eating healthy. And it was like two years later I'm still saying the same thing. And now it's Friday, so I'll just start from Monday. And then comes Monday, but it's the 28th of the month, so let's start from the first of the month. And then we're like well, it's the first of the month, but it's December, we'll just start from New Year's and you just keep delaying that progress.

Speaker 2: 3:48

And then I realized it's just like a lack of integrity, like I'm basically, you know, causing my own self to not reach my goals with my lack of action, lack of inaction, and that was showing up with integrity and, as you were talking about earlier, you know you can try to hide from it, but integrity will find you. It knows deep down and you know it too deep down. So I think, and that doesn't sit well with anybody, right when we say we're going to do something and we don't. So I think that's when I first realized it in college, and that was just one little instance of that. And as your life progresses, more and more instances happen and they give you more for understanding of. Okay, this is something I really need to be paying attention to. And that was exacerbated when I started trading the stock market, because you know you're trading millions of dollars and you realize if you're not falling through on your own word, things can not be that fun. You know, yeah, how interesting.

Speaker 1: 4:38

So I want to hear more about when you, when you, got involved with the stock market. But I'd also like to go back to that first realization that you had. When you got that realization, did something happen that triggered you realizing that? Or was it just you were fed up with looking in the mirror and realizing that you weren't doing what you said you were going to do? Can you, can you remember the circumstances where you kind of woke up to that?

Speaker 2: 5:03

Yeah, for me I think it was making a move. So I was born and raised in India and I moved to London and, just you know, get my college degree and everything. So when I moved for college, I was I almost used the moving to London as like a milestone. Okay, from this point onward I got to do something different. Right, like I'm going to start fresh. So almost like you know, when you're in the same place all the time, it's easy to get into your comfort zone.

Speaker 2: 5:26

But as you step out and now you move to a new country, now you're like okay, I really have to start fresh. You know, and that was kind of the marker for me to say, okay, I better start paying attention and let's use this as a new life, to live the life that I actually want to live and be the person I want to be. And integrity is always going to be constant battle, right, I mean, it's never going to be. You get into a point where you're just like okay, I've got everything, I do, every single thing. There's always going to be these little breaks and you just have to sort of catch yourself in the midst of that.

Speaker 1: 5:55

Yes, I know exactly what you mean. I've experienced that myself. But that thing of making it when you, when you move and you've got fresh start, that is an interesting point Because, of course, when you're in the place that you were in, you're surrounded by people who know you as you were, then aren't you? You go to a new place, you've got a new chance to make a first impression or to kind of impact your life in a new way. So when you started making that fresh start and you've made a decision to follow your own integrity, what was that like?

Speaker 2: 6:26

I think it was a really good feeling Because that gave me a sense of self confidence that I didn't have growing up. That seeing that, okay, I can do it, right, like I put my mind to it, I said I'm going to do this and I did it, and that definitely feeds yourself confidence and your self esteem. And then also it feeds into other aspects of your life because you're like, if I can do this, I can do this. And then you know, it starts to really feed your confidence. It's just snowballs from there. And I mean growing up I was really shy, introvert. I think I still am introvert for the most part, but you know, really shy, introvert and not knowing what I wanted to do. And, sort of to your point, I use this as a way of saying, okay, nobody knows me here in this new country. I can make a first impression. So what kind of impression do I really want to make? And I think that kind of got me to take a little bit action on that area.

Speaker 1: 7:11

I understand right. So you had kind of a conversation with yourself. Over here we call that having a word with yourself. Yeah, about, about something you got to give yourself a, an instruction and get yourself moving. You make it sound very smooth, and so it was very straightforward. Was it straightforward, or was it?

Speaker 2: 7:30

Absolutely not, definitely not smooth. You know there's many days, you know you fall off, then you get back on it, then you think about quitting, then you get back on it. It's a lot of back and forth, just like anything in life. Right, it's like a roller coaster. You just have to get comfortable riding the roller coaster. There's two types of people. One person can get on the roller coaster, scream and shout as we're through it, and one person can just let go and enjoy the ride. So I think it's always going to be the roller coaster. You just have to learn to enjoy the ride and not be that you know, screaming person on the roller coaster.

Speaker 1: 7:59

Absolutely, it just reminded me of. We had an office in Knightsbridge in London. Do you know Knightsbridge? Yes, so you know, it's a. It's a quite an expensive area, and between the tube station and our office we had to walk past all these shops with fabulous clothes in them, and so we were always tempted to just go and just buy a jacket on the way into the office, you know, for three grand. And we would all have this rule with ourselves If we popped out to get something for lunch. Not to take our credit cards with us, just take enough cash to buy the lunch, because otherwise in Knightsbridge we were going to be in serious trouble. And from a point of view integrity, you know that sometimes we have to do things, put things in place, don't we? To kind of keep ourselves in line.

Speaker 2: 8:48

Absolutely. There's always going to be breaks of integrity. You just have to coach yourself through, as you said, putting things in place to ensure that doesn't happen again, because there's always going to be temptations. There's always going to be things coming at our way or distractions trying to take us away from our eventual goal. But the key is not to eliminate the distractions. You can never eliminate everything because you know we can only control our environment, but not the external forces. So there's always going to be external forces coming. What you got to do is just put things in place to ensure it doesn't happen, and you know so. Put barriers put. You know having limits, you know learning how to say no. I think all those things in life are very handy skills to learn.

Speaker 1: 9:26

Yeah, and did you have because you were quite young when you came to London. How old were you? Early twenties maybe.

Speaker 2: 9:34

No, I was about 18. Oh, you were 18. Oh right.

Speaker 1: 9:37

So you were just starting a degree, were you? Or were you going to a second degree?

Speaker 2: 9:42

Right, I did an undergrad at Brunel in Uxbridge.

Speaker 1: 9:46

Yeah, okay. So did you know anybody in London? Did you have any guidance there? Did you have any mentors in London helping you?

Speaker 2: 9:56

Oh, no, nobody, I didn't know anybody, and that was for me. That was the exciting part. Nobody knows me, you know. So, whatever my you know whatever. I guess growing up in high school you're like, well, I'm not the most popular kid, I'm like nobody knows me. Here I could be whoever I want to be. Yeah, you know. So I think that. So, yeah, nobody knowed me there and I just. But I made friends pretty quickly, you know, it helps when you're living in on the campus. It helps me, you know, make good friends over there that are still lifelong friends to date.

Speaker 1: 10:22

Yeah, that's interesting, because some I think some people find it easier to work with something like integrity by themselves, and some people find it easier to do in a group or with a mentor. Do you think that's true? Have you observed that?

Speaker 2: 10:39

Yeah, I think there's many different types of people. I think it helps to have you know somebody like an accountability partner or somebody who can bounce ideas off or can just check in with you real quick. So that definitely helps. But in the end you still have to keep your word to ourselves, because you know it's easy to have an accountability partner and tell them one thing, but then behind closed doors you're doing a different thing. So I think you know it's important to keep it to yourself first. But it does help if somebody's checking in, somebody you trust, somebody you like, somebody you respect, to check in with you and you know, hold you accountable.

Speaker 1: 11:10

Yeah, yeah, so how? So after that, tell me a bit about your journey from there to starting to work with the stock market.

Speaker 2: 11:18

Yeah, actually started in dorm room. I remember I was in college and you know there's a couple of friends of mine and we were all really interested in the stock market, but we didn't know anything about it. We were brand new. We just knew that, okay, there's money in, there is possible to make money. It goes up and down and that's all the knowledge we had. But we decided, okay, why don't we? You know, there's a entrepreneurship society in college. There's a football you know society. There's a rugby society, there's a this is society for every little sport or interest that you have.

Speaker 2: 11:45

And we were like there's no such thing as a trading or investing society. I mean, you would think that's pretty important. Yeah, and we and a couple of friends you know, we teamed up and we said why don't we start our own club? So we filed the application with college. We got approved, we started the thing called the trading and investing society, where there's just a bunch of people we'd meet once a week and just talk about what we saw on CNBC or what a book we read about trading or investing. We just share ideas on what we've learned in our own little time. And you know, it started off just with three or four people, then it grew to 10, 1520, 30 and then it. I mean, the best part now for me to know is that that society is still running to date in college and the university campus, and we started that, so that's where the spark was ignited for trading and investing.

Speaker 2: 12:26

And I just got really curious about it, started just spending a lot of time in my dorm, being the typical intro work, you know, reading a lot of books, watching a lot of courses, talking to people about it, and that's where the interest was sparked. And then I wrote a blog. I used to just write my research articles on different stocks and things that I've learned and that got pretty popular. You know, websites like Yau Finance and stuff said hey, do you want to write for us? You know, and then they started paying me for the articles. That's how I collected the initial money to actually be able to trade the stock market by writing articles for Yau Finance researching. That's why I tell people don't trust anything you read online. Is probably a college student like me writing those articles, you know. But I collected the money from writing those articles open to trading account myself and then just basically never look back.

Speaker 1: 13:15

Fantastic. You know, I think I think a lot of people don't realize that if you're going to start getting involved with something like the stock market, doing that kind of grounding, that you're talking about all that research, talking in your peer group, writing articles because I imagine to write articles you've got to get very clear about what you want to say and you've got to make sure it holds up, don't you? I remember the first time I tried to write an article, I just stalled because I just didn't know what I was trying to say or how to reinforce it. So it's a very, very educational thing to do, isn't it? Writing articles?

Speaker 2: 13:50

100%. It gets your. You will get your thoughts out, you know, on paper or other people to realize, and as you're writing, your thoughts become more clear because you might have a little idea in your head. But now, as you start writing and making more specific, then that idea becomes more real. And the same thing applies to our goals, to our business life and personal life is just, you know, writing through our goals and our vision statements and then, as you write it down, it becomes more clear in our mind and our heart.

Speaker 1: 14:17

Yeah, more clarified. And what was it you were actually supposed to be studying at college?

Speaker 2: 14:22

Yeah, I studied business management.

Speaker 1: 14:25

Okay, so there is a you weren't sort of studying I don't know geography and then doing something.

Speaker 2: 14:32

Yeah, I was always into commerce business and you know learning a lot of that. I just grew up with my family as an entrepreneurial family, so growing up that was there's no other option. You know that's the only thing we're going to learn and I was really curious about it. I always loved you know dealing with people and you know figuring out how things move and what gets people to. You know take action, purchase and the whole commerce business. I'm really fascinated about that even now.

Speaker 1: 15:00

And how interesting, because you said earlier that you can, that you consider yourself to be an introvert, and then you just said you're really interested in dealing with people and understanding. You know all of that in relation to commerce.

Speaker 2: 15:14

How do you put those?

Speaker 1: 15:14

two things together.

Speaker 2: 15:17

Yeah. So I would say introvert, more so in a social aspect. You know, if you put me in a you know networking event or a party, you know probably going to be more introverted. But when it comes to business, I'm in my element, you know, and. But then again I find the right people to delegate tasks to, so then they could go out and actually do the talking and the deals and the closing and the sales and I can just direct them on how to do it and the strategy to do it with and that's kind of where my element lies is even my sales team. I'd let them know okay, here's how we need to do this, and then they will be the ones actually going out and doing it.

Speaker 1: 15:47

Yeah, but you must have been quite good with peers as well in order to get that society going in the first place, because that's not a situation or the boss, is it? That's where some of you are building that together.

Speaker 2: 15:59

Definitely and I think my friends definitely brought a lot to the table from the recruiting and getting people standpoint. I was more so involved in forming the club, the strategy, what we're going to talk about and what we're going to learn. And then a couple of my friends. They were more social and outgoing, so they would talk to people on campus and invite them to our university.

Speaker 1: 16:18

Yeah, I'm going to tell you something which I think not many people actually admit this. I think a lot of people find parties and networking really tedious, not very much fun and a bit awkward, and I think most people are easier when they're in a situation where they have a purpose for what they're doing and they're actually genuinely interested in it. Yeah, that's a really good point.

Speaker 1: 16:42

I've spoken to so many people who say, look, I'm fine in these circumstances, etc. But if it's a party or networking, I feel really awkward and I thought about it. Actually, most networking events I've been to I'd really just like to not be there because nobody really wants to be there. They're all there because they think it's the only way they're going to get business or something. They're not there because they really want to be there. Often and often, it's the same with parties.

Speaker 1: 17:07

They're there because they think they ought to go, because otherwise people would think that they're cold, you know whatever.

Speaker 2: 17:14

Yeah, 100%. I think that's a great point. You know, would you talk about purpose? That's, I think the right way to put it is if there's a purpose behind going somewhere, then I know, okay, that's the purpose I want to accomplish, and I can accomplish that. But if there's no purpose, we're just hanging out, then after a while, I mean, for a certain point it's fun if it's close friends, but if it's people I don't know, I'm like what's the point?

Speaker 1: 17:37

Yeah, unless you've got a purpose, which is you want to meet some new people. You know if you genuinely want to meet some new people, then maybe that's what you're going to do. But then you have a purpose, don't you, to do it, right, true yeah.

Speaker 1: 17:50

So I can understand. You know, it sounds like your background was quite instrumental as well in you having the right kind of mindset, because I think a lot of people, when they think about something like trading or anything to do with risk, you know, and there's risk. There's an obvious kind of set of risks around trading, but in all areas of our lives there are risks. You know, I had a conversation with a beloved friend earlier today. That was a very risky conversation but it was just risky emotionally in the relationship, you know, and so for both of us we're managing risk in that conversation. There's nothing to do with money or trading or anything you know, and the sort of the feelings around dealing with risk I think are common in all these situations Because you know you're doing trading psychology. Where did the psychology part come in?

Speaker 2: 18:44

Psychology part came in when I started trading and I realized that, oh, it's not really about the strategy or the tactic or my research. It's about my ability to actually follow my own research or follow my own instinct. And that's when psychology aspect come in, because we're trading. Research has already been done. Trading releases the same hormones of dopamine and serotonin that you get when you gamble, when you have sex, when you do any illicit drugs. Now that, as traders, we're getting that every single day in real time.

Speaker 2: 19:16

So if you're not emotionally stable, and those hormone spikes can really cause you to do disaster. That's why you see in the financial crisis, the Wall Street, what happened, and people you know really not taking their losses well, and that could cause people to do all sorts of things. You know they can go on tilt, which means, let's say, a position is going against them. Rather than just getting out and taking a small loss and moving on to the next one, they keep holding, maybe it'll come back up, they buy more, they sell their car, they take the money, buy more and hoping it'll come back up, and then the brewing their whole financial future right by just doubling down on a bad debt rather than just getting out and taking a loss, or sometimes you see the perfect opportunity. You're like, yes, I know this. You know, like five years ago, if I asked somebody, what do you think about Amazon? Is it going to do well as a company? Well, we all would have said, yeah, amazon's going to be more relevant in the next five years.

Speaker 2: 20:03

But how many of us actually invested in it? Not many. So, even though we knew it, we didn't do it right. So that's one of those things we don't take advantage of opportunities, we get gun shy and all those things are psychology, scarcity, mindset based.

Speaker 2: 20:15

And that's what it dawned on me that okay, my trading results are actually not much to do with the strategy itself, but my actual ability to stick to it and follow it consistently too, and not letting my emotions take control when I say I'm going to get out of a stock. If it goes down to this level or goes up to this level, I better be getting out, I better not hold it right. In the same way, let's say, if you buy a stock and you say, okay, if it goes, if I buy, that example, $100, it goes to $200, I'll sell it. Now it's at $200, you're like, ooh, maybe it'll go to $250 and you keep holding. Greed takes over. So those two primary emotions of fear and greed is what moves the market. In Learning how to control, that is the most important part about trading psychology.

Speaker 1: 20:54

Amazing. I love it. It reminds me of in 2020, a lot of people were buying precious metals you know, gold and silver and I said I can't do that. I just can't cope with the stress of the. I can't do it. They said buy 10 pounds worth and just play with it and just watch. And I did and I couldn't believe the emotional experience in my body as I was watching what was happening to this 10 pounds worth. Yeah right, oh my God, it's going up. Oh, no, it's going down. Oh my God, it's going up.

Speaker 1: 21:33

And people were always saying, oh no, silver's down at the moment, as if that was it forever. You know, gold is up at the moment and a friend of mine was at my house and I got a bit more comfortable with it over time and I showed my friend this chart you know, one of these live charts that updates itself and she sat there and she said, oh, it's gone up. Oh, it's gone down. Oh, it's gone up, it's gone down. And then she went oh, she said, I get it, it goes up and down all the time. I said that's exactly right.

Speaker 2: 22:04

Yeah, 100%. It's the roller coaster we talked about. You know just like it's going to go up and down. That's what the prices do.

Speaker 2: 22:11

You got to get comfortable in your own plan. You know, if you think it's going to go higher, then you should stick it through. And I think that's the beauty about risk. You know all the good things you want in life lie on the other side of that risk. When you take the risk, you get the reward. When there's no risk, well, there's also no reward. So it's all about.

Speaker 2: 22:29

You know, some people's fear of loss is stronger than their hope for gain. So I piece them to the opposite. Your hope for gain should be stronger than your fear of loss. That's how you'll get the gain. If your fear of loss is stronger, then well, you're never going to have a loss, but you're also never going to have a gain, so you're going to be stagnant. So your hope for gain needs to be stronger, and I think anything good in life comes from taking risk. I mean, there's risks and I think that's one thing you know. Not to go off topic, that's one thing wrong with the society these days. They're trying to eliminate risk in anything. Nobody should get offended, you know, let there's no risk there, and that's actually causing more harm than good. I mean, you could cross the street. There's risk, right, you could get hit by a car across the street. Should we ban streets? Should we ban cars? No Right, so the same way. Anyway. I don't want to go off topic, but that's the point.

Speaker 1: 23:15

I don't think it's a tough topic. I know you might think I don't think that's off topic at all, because I think you know one extreme is to try to live a life with no risk whatsoever and the other extreme is to be completely unaware of risk. You know reckless is the other end, isn't it? Well, you're just reckless. You know you're at the gaming table, it's three o'clock in the morning, you've got one and a half bottles of vodka inside you and this is not me I'm talking about. I promise I've never done that, but you know this is what you see in the movies, right? And you go all in and here's the keys of my house and the Porsche and everything else, because I'm a winning hand.

Speaker 1: 23:54

Then you lose everything you know, and then your wife leaves you and then it's all over. You know what you're talking about is participating somewhere in the middle, but following your own integrity of your own plan and not letting the emotional ups and downs and the greed and the fear control you and throw you off balance. It sounds like that's what you're saying.

Speaker 2: 24:19

Yeah, there's a great song right. No one to hold them, no one to fold them. So, like no one to take the risk, no one not to take the risk. And just like a roller coaster, sometimes you'll take the risk, sometimes you'll choose not to, and that's just the good you know analogy for life in general. That's what a heartbeat is. Heartbeat is up and down, it's never a straight line. So the same way, you know, applies to this concept no one to take the risk, no one not to take it. And that discernment is very important. And most people have that discernment. They just don't act on it, they don't trust themselves enough to do that. I think that's where building that self confidence, self esteem, through a series of smaller actions that build your integrity is the way to do it.

Speaker 1: 24:55

Right, like I did with the gold and silver, you know, 10 pounds. Right, and then once you've gone to over the, you know the sweats and the cold sweat down the back of your neck and the hot flow. You know, for 10 pounds, then you can move on to 15 pounds.

Speaker 2: 25:13

Yeah, absolutely Absolutely. And that's exactly what I teach my traders to is that, hey, you don't need to risk all the money right now. Let's start first on even a demo account, a simulated account, where the money is not real. The prices are real Silver, gold, everything is real Because the money is not real. Start there and then, as you said, go to 10 pounds, then maybe 15, 20, keep getting to a point, you know, slowly inching your way up because you never want to go from 10 to 1000. That's a pretty big jump, right, and then you'll have a different set of emotions to slowly progress. Your emotions 10, 15. So your brain never actually feels it because we just keep adjusting slowly and slowly to bigger numbers, and I think that's the right way to do it. So, yeah, I agree with you.

Speaker 1: 25:52

Fantastic, I love that. So you're taking out the panic. Really, you know the panic buying the panic, selling your kind of evening it out. It sounds like yeah. So how do you constantly?

Speaker 2: 26:13

train your brain to be okay with these numbers, because if you can't, you know, hold and be emotionally stable with 10 pounds, you're not going to be stable with 100 pounds, right? So you slowly build yourself up and our human mind is very adaptive, right, like I mean any anything in life that happens, like, for example, if somebody told us you know 10 years ago, this thing is going to be like a virus coming, everybody's going to be locked in their home, wear a mask. You'd be like no way. But then it happened and guess what? We adapted to it. So humans are very adaptable. So you just constantly give yourself 10 pounds, 15 pounds, 20 pounds, slowly keep adapting. But the problems happen when you big, big leaps. Now, with big leaps come big reward. But it's also a possibility you're going to fall right back down. So I think slowly stair, step your way up is the best way.

Speaker 1: 26:56

Yeah, yeah, that makes perfect sense. So how did you come to develop this understanding and also the emotional capacity? Because there's that's that word around, emotional capacity which is sort of elastic and it's like you've got to be able to feel the intensity of what you're experiencing, but you've also got to be able to detach and take the action you've chosen to take. That's a certain emotional capacity, isn't it? To be able to do that? How do you think you developed that in yourself?

Speaker 2: 27:31

I think, just by doing it. I think a lot of people try to learn a lot of things before they actually do anything, but the best learning happens when you're while you're doing it right. So when you do it, you know, take action, you fail, or you know you struggle and you feel those actual emotions that we're trying to overcome and then you can overcome it. Like reading a book is great, you know, listening to audiobook is great, but that's just information. Unless you're actually in that situation, you're not going to fully ingrain that. So I think I constantly try to put myself in those situations where I was uncomfortable, because I know that that's where it's showing me where to grow. So I constantly put myself in those situations. And in trading in my first couple of years I mean first year I didn't make any money in my first year trading any money at all. So it was just me battling with my own emotions, battling with myself or, you know, almost borderline gambling at some points, because I was just like I got to make this back. Maybe you have a bad trade, you lose some money on it. You're like this next one I'm going to make it back on. You double down. And then you realize, you know by trial and error, that that's not the way to do it.

Speaker 2: 28:29

And I think I was also surrounded fortunate to be surrounded by great mentors who were, you know, guiding me through that process. They were letting me know the pitfalls ahead of time, because anytime I meet somebody successful, I only ask them one question. You know that, okay, if you were to do something different, what would it be Right? And then the other thing is what is some pitfalls I need to look out for? And then they would just tell me and I would make sure to avoid those pitfalls. So I think anytime people, somebody, meet anybody successful, they always ask them the strategy part how do I do this? How do I do that? I just ask them what should I look out for at this level of success? What is the main pitfalls? And then they would just tell me.

Speaker 2: 29:04

So a lot of traders I met who were really successful told me to keep and check on your emotions. Just focus on that, don't focus too much on the stock market or any of that. Just try to be robotic, almost robotic indifference. And I think that is something I took too hard and I really practiced, and you know I'm a big avid reader. I read a lot of psychology books. I read a lot of spiritual books. So I don't read any fiction. It's all nonfiction. My library so I think growing up I think that's where I picked up a lot of these habits and concepts- Right, Okay.

Speaker 1: 29:36

So my next question that kind of springs out of that is if you are watching your emotions and being careful not to let them run away with you when you're doing all that work, how do you do that without becoming overly unemotional as a person? How do you do that without losing your sensitivity, empathy and all of the other beautiful emotional capacities that we have?

Speaker 2: 30:01

That is definitely a challenge, I would say, for a lot of people. You know, I tell people that. You know what got me the business success and the trading success might not be the best thing in relationships because I've learned to be very robotic indifference, looking at logical things logically. And you know, having being objective rather than subjective, so emotions and all of that is kind of subjective, right, whereas objective is actual hard facts. So I've learned to train myself to do that. So incertainators is going to help you in business and markets and all of that.

Speaker 2: 30:30

Incertainators it might not, but the way to not completely let go of your empathy and all of that is to have habits like gratitude exercises. Right, I write down in my journal every night what am I grateful for, what was the best three things about today? Or you know things of that nature. I try to make a conscious effort to you know reach out to people. How you're doing, you know checking on people. So you have to be conscious about that so you don't completely go to the other side. And that comes with having practices in place. You know, I have a girl. That's like. I call her like my gift girl. So it's a birthday going on for somebody and I call her, and she finds the perfect gifts and sends it to whoever needs to be sent the gift. So I take those actions to. You know, make sure I'm always staying grounded as well, and you know being grateful for people around me and you know people who are surrounding me and got me where I am.

Speaker 1: 31:18

Right, okay, so you're recognizing that that's a potential risk in and of itself.

Speaker 2: 31:23

Absolutely, absolutely. I think one of my ex-girlfriends told me that. So I took that too hard and I'm like you know you might be right, I might be too focused on my work and things doing logically like an army sergeant. So I could see that and you know, now we talk about it, we joke about it, but you know I definitely learned a lot from that.

Speaker 1: 31:41

Yeah, yeah, sometimes. Sometimes the last person we want to hear it from is the girlfriend or the boyfriend. But years later we're grateful.

Speaker 2: 31:49

Yeah, 100% For me. For me it was great because I was like that's exactly, if I mess up in business or in trading, I always want to know, okay, what caused that. So for me it was great that I just the first thing after break up I asked her was like hey, what, what do you think? You know what got us here? And she was very honest with that. I think we had a great conversation about it. So I appreciate that more so than just, you know, ending relationships on a bad term, like we're not together anymore but we're still friends. So you know.

Speaker 1: 32:16

Beautiful. Well, you also. You have the capacity to ask the question and to listen, which I would say are admirable capacities to have, because a lot of us can't, and you got to be a little robotic when you actually want to hear the response.

Speaker 2: 32:29

Sometimes it might not be the response you want to hear and some people might get emotional about that. But I think from training what I've learned to just to take feedback as it comes and just tweak it, optimize it and get better.

Speaker 1: 32:41

Yeah, yeah, so you're not attached to the emotional reaction. So it's actually like you're not suppressing or cutting off from the emotional. It sounds more as if you're detached, being less attached to it. Let less not less at the mercy of it, but still where I would say, yeah, managing would be the right word.

Speaker 2: 33:05

Like, you have the emotions, everybody has emotions. You just learn to manage them and if it's a negative emotion, you just learn to not act on it. I mean it's okay to have the emotion, it's okay to feel a certain thing, but it's not necessary for you to act on it. So that's kind of what I've trained myself to do is to feel it, process it, think about it, ponder on it. But we don't need to act on every little emotion we have. I mean I'd be in trouble if I acted on every little emotion I had.

Speaker 1: 33:30

I think we always yeah, yeah, fantastic. So how did you then end up working with people, helping people with their trading psychology?

Speaker 2: 33:40

So it started in 2015. So at that point I'd already been trading for about five years. So in 2015, I started working for a firm in New York. I was trading their money. So they would give me their money and I would trade for them and in exchange they would take a percentage of everything I made. So I started trading for them. I kind of progressed my way up the firm and then the firm's a CEO called me and said hey, we have a lot of new hires coming in, but all the new hires are kind of stuck at this level. They're not getting promoted.

Speaker 2: 34:07

When you got promoted really quickly, you know, could you start coaching them? That's when I first got into the coaching businesses, like you know, starting coaching the new hires for the company and, you know, helping them progress through their promotional levels. And that's when I realized, while coaching people, that it's not about the actual strategy. A lot of them are very knowledgeable, more knowledgeable than me. You know ex CEOs of companies and you know they've had successful lawyers and doctors, way more intelligent than I am. But yet they were not succeeding.

Speaker 2: 34:34

And the biggest difference maker was their emotions. They were very emotional, acting on every little emotion. How could this talk, do this to me I'm going to buy more. You know, like they started getting really, really emotional and I think that's when I realized that that was the difference maker People who were making it, learn how to just control it, and other people were acting on it. And that's when I got into psychology and also my own struggles to being a trader early on, kind of put two and two together and realize that that is not just my issue, that's actually majority of people's issue.

Speaker 1: 35:04

Yeah, and it sounds to me as though a lot of your learning has come from actually observing your own reactions and trying to learn from them, rather than just ignoring them or trying to make yourself feel better or whatever. And it strikes me that's really relevant in relationship to both risk and integrity, because in regard to risk, when we feel uncomfortable around risk, we don't necessarily want to look at that, do we? And the same with integrity If we feel uncomfortable around our own integrity, perhaps we'd rather not look at it, perhaps we'd rather just think about something else, but then we don't do the learning.

Speaker 2: 35:47

Right, it's easier to just ignore or pretend it never happened again, but our life will demonstrate the evidence of you not taking action. I mean, it's simple If you don't have the results you want, if you don't have the life you want, it's probably a result of some inaction somewhere or lack of integrity somewhere. And if you're happy, if you're satisfied with the life, then great. But if you deep down you know that you could do better, you're not happy or you could be way better on, then there's a lack of integrity somewhere that you're some. Because most of our problems emotionally happen not with things we've done, but things that we know we should do but we're not doing it. Those things really kind of, we hold as humans in our brain all the time, and our heart as well.

Speaker 2: 36:29

And the book that I wrote, prepping for Success, is literally originally was meant as notes to myself. So I always tell people you're enjoying this book, you're loving this book, but read it the second time, but read it from the lens of I was writing it to myself. Then you'll start to see a lot of those things. I wrote these things for myself and then eventually I turn it into a book format. But these are all things that I used to say to myself hey, we need to do this, we need to start working on this, and that's where the ideas came from.

Speaker 1: 36:56

I love that. I think that is a really good way to do it, because people often write books particularly self-help books or self-improvement books are often written as if they're from the teacher to the student and often they come across really condescending because of that and I can only read the first five pages and then I'm done Right, I'm skipping to the end, to the conclusion, but I think if you're writing it to yourself, that's a much more respectful, equal way to do it isn't it.

Speaker 2: 37:31

Yeah, in the first chapter of the book I say, hey, there's nothing new here. You've already read it, heard it in some form or the other. You've already heard a lot of that stuff that I'm going to be reading the book. You've read it, you've heard it, you know all of it, but the difference is you're not doing it. So it really comes down to distilling all the things that you might learn and self-help into just 10 things that we can start acting on right now. And I think that's where the difference maker is. It's more so me as a friend writing it to you and saying, hey, here's what we got to do together. I got to do this too, you got to do this too. So that's the perspective I've written it from, rather than do this right now. It's not in that perspective.

Speaker 1: 38:11

And is the audible? Is it you speaking in the audible?

Speaker 2: 38:15

So there's me too, but there's a narrator. So it's a great friend of mine, you know matches my personality and my voice. So you know he narrated the book. But then at the end of every chapter I come on in my own voice and then I give my little two cents on that chapter and you know some Q&A. So there's both of us in the audiobook.

Speaker 1: 38:32

Oh, that's a really interesting way to do it. I like that, yeah, so yeah, brilliant. So this is really fascinating, this whole thing. I think this whole business of risk and integrity and the connection between risk and integrity is really interesting, and I also think it's quite illuminating, because people who know nothing about trading and the stock market will sometimes assume that people who work in that area have no integrity, that they are greedy, duplicitous, untrustworthy people with no integrity. Have you ever heard that idea?

Speaker 2: 39:14

Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, and finance Wall Street, I mean, I've heard that all over. But I think it depends on how we define integrity. I think there's a difference between ethics and integrity, right? So integrity as a define, it is doing what you said you're going to do and then doing it when you said you're going to do it. If you do what you said you're going to do and you congruent with the words that come out of your mouth, you believe in your own word and you do every single thing you said you're going to do, you're in an integrity.

Speaker 2: 39:38

Now, if you're ethical or moral, that's a different story, right, that's a completely different talk. So I think people miss integrity for morality and ethics. But integrity is just you keeping your word to yourself and to others too. If I tell you I'm going to get on a call with you at, let's say, 11 am, then I'm going to get on a call with you at 11 am. That's me keeping my word to you and that's integrity. So I think, but yeah, there's definitely ethics and morality, but that goes for any industry, I think, right, any industry would have people that are moral, ethical and integrity. There's people always going to be that are not integrity and not moral. In Wall Street it's obviously exacerbated because of money and the things that it could get you, so it's more looked upon, but I would say there's many other industries that are probably less or ethical than finance people.

Speaker 1: 40:26

Yeah, great, thank you for that distinction. I think that's important and, in my own personal view, is that there is a connection between personal integrity and ethics. So for me personally, my personal ethics and my personal integrity go hand in hand. You know, part of my integrity is to behave ethically. I say I want to behave ethically, so if I do, I'm in integrity, if I don't, I don't 100%. But that's me and I think for a lot of people that's probably true. I like to think so.

Speaker 2: 40:58

It should be, it should be right, it should be.

Speaker 1: 41:01

It actually leads to my next question, which is to do with, you know we've mentioned.

Speaker 1: 41:06

The last few years have been interesting to say the least, and the world's in a very interesting place.

Speaker 1: 41:10

Now there are quite a few challenges and there are a lot of people in leadership positions who I like to think most of those people want to be part of the solution. Now, some of those people are simply trying to be good leaders in their own lives, right? So there's all kinds of people, and the vast majority of people who listen to this podcast are people who are open and inquiring and wanting to be better leaders of one sort or another. And as we're now talking today about integrity and risk, I wonder if you'd like to take a moment and consider is there something you've really a message you'd really like to give to those people right now, in this situation? And, as we said before, this episode is airing in early 2024. So we don't know exactly. You know that's in a couple of months from now, but, assuming things are pretty much the way they are now, or the way they seem to be kind of going, what would you like to say to those leaders who want to be part of the solution?

Speaker 2: 42:20

I think I'm going to sort of go back on and hammer on. The point about integrity is that you know, no matter what happened in your 2023, 2022, 2021, no matter what happened all those years, maybe you had a lack of integrity, maybe you said you're going to do something and you didn't. You know it's fine, we all do that, right, and now it's just time to let it go. Nobody's going to get a call from the past. Nobody's going to get a call from the future, right? The only thing you're going to get a call from is the present. So I think what you need to do now is start thinking about okay, right, maybe I didn't have a, I had a lack of integrity, all fine now. Now, this is a fresh start. Just like when I left India and I moved to London, it was a fresh start. I put a stake in the ground. This is the new me, right? And the same way I went to New York, I put a stake in the ground. This is my next level. You need to put a stake in the ground right now, and so, from this point onward, I'm going to choose to be this, whatever that might be for you, but choose to be this, and it's a choice. I choose to be this way. I choose to live ethically, I choose to live more morally, I choose to live it with integrity and I choose to do everything I want to say Now when you notice there's a lack of integrity, you got to put things in place to ensure it doesn't happen again, right?

Speaker 2: 43:27

So a lot of time you have to pay attention to the words that come out of your mouth, right? You really got to mean it. So be really cognizant of what you're speaking and really make sure you mean it. And you know, if you're say something you don't mean, always process it with yourself. Why did I say that? If I never I really never meant it. Why did I say that? Was it to try to look good to other people? Was it to try to look bad, like? And then process where's that coming from? Like? Why am I trying to look good to this stranger that I don't even know? Right? So I think those are the questions you need to ask yourself. That's where growth will lie. And always take risks, right, not reckless risks, but take risks that you know you should be taking, right, and you'll feel it too.

Speaker 2: 44:03

Learn to trust your gut, learn to trust your instinct. They're there for a reason. Right Now, if you have a certain thing you keep, you know something keeps poking at you. You should do this, you should make a move, you should move to the state, you should move to the city and you're not listening to yourself. I think you're doing yourself a disservice. Those are, in my opinion, spiritually. Those are messages coming from you to say, okay, you need to do this. So learn to listen to your gut and trust your instinct. Go with it. What's the worst that can happen, you know yeah.

Speaker 1: 44:29

Brilliant, wow. Well, if the rest of your book is like that, then I'm going to say everyone should buy it. Thank you very much. Brilliant, absolutely right, thank you, and very encouraging, indeed. I think that's another thing. Around risk and integrity, often people think, oh, risk, oh my God, fear you know integrity. Oh no, I'm going to find out where I'm bad and where I'm failing. But the way you talk about it, you talk about it in a really encouraging way and in a really accepting way. You know, you said we all sometimes fall off our integrity. We can just get back on again.

Speaker 1: 45:05

You know we can just learn from that and keep moving. So absolutely wonderful. So thank you. Where would you like people to go if they want to find you?

Speaker 2: 45:17

I think the best place to find me would be Instagram and Twitter. My username on both of those is Delta90, D-E-L-T-A-N-I-N-E-T-Y. Don't ask me why I had a long time ago Then change it. So that's the username Delta90, Twitter, Instagram and for my book, Amazon, Audible, Barnes, Nobles wherever you get your books or you can get more information on preppingforsuccesscom.

Speaker 1: 45:39

Fantastic. Well, I will put all three of those in the show notes so people can find them there. There's another question I always like to ask people before we finish Ammol, which is we've talked about quite a lot today and I found it a really fascinating conversation. I feel like I know I'm the host, but I feel like I've learned a lot in this conversation, which has been really very inspiring and lovely for me If you think back over this conversation. Has there been a favorite part?

Speaker 2: 46:11

I think there's been a lot of different favorite parts, but I think some of the things that even you were mentioning about social nobody really wants to go, but everybody wants to make that work and the distinction that you put forward I think was also pretty exciting. That purpose If you have a purpose, you want to go, you want to take action. If you don't have a purpose, you're going to feel like you're not there. So I think that it's a good reminder to live true to your purpose. You're going to feel better all the time if you just live true to your purpose and not do things or attend things that have no purpose behind it. So I think that's one thing that I took away from it. But I think everything we talked about, I think integrity, the distinctions between those and how to keep the word to yourself I think those are all fantastic points.

Speaker 1: 46:53

Fantastic. Well, it's been such a pleasure having you on Ammol. And who knew there was such a thing as trading psychology? I had no idea, yeah, so but there is.

Speaker 2: 47:04

Thanks for having me.

Speaker 1: 47:05

It's my absolute pleasure and have an absolutely beautiful day.