Podcast: Goals, processes and habits

Simon Shares

October was a decent month for the Top40, adding almost 3% and now 9.5% year-to-date excluding dividends.
Moody’s makes us negative but not junk and the ZAR soars.
Finance minister, Tito Mboweni, says government ‘not considering’ the idea of prescribed assets. https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2019-11-05-treasury-not-considering-prescribed-assets-mboweni-says/
The Shoprite* (JSE code: SHP) update what was way more interesting for the fact that Christo Wiese got voted off the board, until he used his zero economic but voting shares that he tried to sell to Shoprite for some R3billion. The actual update shows SA doing well and importantly we’re seeing some inflation while the rest of Africa continues to struggle and the new Xtra Savings Rewards Programme got 1million sign ups in the first week.
Afrimat (JSE code: AFT) results knocked it our of the park with their iron ore business (Demaneng) is paying for itself in double quick time.
Famous Brands* (JSE code; FBR) results show things still tough, especially in the UK as operating margins get killed. They used to be over 20% and are now hanging onto 11% by a thread.
Uber lost another $1billion in one quarter, again due to interest, depreciation and stock based compensation costs. Last quarter they blamed listing costs this time they point out Uber taxi is profitable if it weren’t for the costs above and Ubereats lost almost $400million. How does food delivery lose money? What are the costs? At listing Uber aid they may never be profitable, and maybe they were right?
ETF blog ~ New CoreShares property ETF (CSPROP).
VIDEO: Live trading ALMI price action for 300 points.
Upcoming events;
- 7 November ~ Millennials navigating markets and the investment landscape
- 21 November ~ Creating a portfolio at the market highs
- 05 December ~ Position your portfolio for 2020

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Goals, processes and habits

Goals need process and process becomes habit and achieves goals

In my trading presentations I always talk about goals and the problem of having a single giant size goal that while desirable is frankly overwhelming. My advice is always to break goals down in small bite size pieces, with one example of those bites always being doing a single perfect trade, followed by another perfect trade, and another and another.

This idea applies to everything we want to achieve in life. Truthfully we have the ability to do almost anything. Almost because doing a marathon in under 2 hours is going to be out of our reach – by an hour. But the goal of doing a first marathon is easy enough, if we break it down. First couch-to-5km, then 10km and so on.

Buy breaking a large goal down into small pieces we’re able to achieve as we go along and hence we also make it 100% achievable.

Then as we’re going along achieving our smaller goals via processes they fast become habits and soon our goals are done.

I started swimming just over a year ago, my goal was a Midmar Mile which I did back in February in a horror time of 44 minutes. But back then my target time was 48 minutes, so I was chuffed. Now my goal for the 2020 Midmar Mile is under 30 minutes. Hard, very hard. But it breaks down into 4 pool sessions a week and every pool session has it’s own goal. Distance or speed or technique. So 4 times a week I wake up eager to try and hit my goal and most weeks I end the week having hit at least 3 sometimes all 4 of my goals.

And slowly I am moving forward.

Important is that I really look forward to and enjoy my training sessions, something that 18 months ago seemed like a crazy idea.

Most important is that is that I structure my process to fit within me. So I do not do early morning training, I train mid morning because that works better for me and hence is easier for me to do. If I was also trying to wake up at 5 to be at the pool by 6, it would be way harder.

So we need to move this into our trading and investing. What’s the goal? Large dividend paying portfolio? FIRE? Trading for income? It can be anything but then it has to be broken down into small processes that enable that goal.

Example, invest enough to live off investments within ten years?
- Get family onboard.
- Cut living expenses. Live small and cheap.
- Max out tax-free.
- Buy ETFs.
- None of these are hard, but all will require effort and work.

Want to be successful trader living off trading income.

How much capital do I need? Do I have enough? How do I get enough?
Pause, do I even know how to trade?
Learn technical analysis and price action.
Practise ~ place 1,000 stop losses.
Practise ~ enter 1,000 trades.
Practise ~ exit 1,000 trades.

What would make a perfect trade? Now do one, and another and another.You now have goals that can be broken down into processes.
You’ll also notice that none of this results in overnight success because overnight success takes years.

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