First of all: happy new year! Let’s keep it real, the last couple for years have been strange to say the least… and 2022 has been no exception. At the start of the year, we thought we had returned to normality, to do everything we used to, only for Doctor Evil to take the word hostage for… ‘One million dollars!’
In any case, looking back on this year, it’s surprising how quickly it’s flown by. I’ve been busy though and I’m glad to say I’ve achieved a few things I’m proud of. For one, I’ve made good progress on the academic front, getting an extra degree while working. Also, I’ve met a good number of new people, through doing interviews for my YouTube channel… and I’ve even participated in my very first writers event, which I’ve also turned into a vlog for YouTube. And lastly, I’ve managed to keep writing my weekly newsletter. It hasn’t always been easy, that’s for sure. Juggling so many different things, I’ve also had to make sacrifices.
Here’s a general life philosophy which I’ve had the last few years. Ignore the nonsense of the outside world and put your focus and attention solely towards your goals. You might wonder what I mean by that. Doesn’t everyone do that? Well, not quite. Listen to the conversations around you and you’ll soon find out the sort of concerns people usually have. Far too often, they’re concerned with what some politician has done or said lately. Well, if discussion could change all of it somehow, I’d say to go right ahead. Otherwise: wasted effort. The same goes for the endless bickering on what’s happening in the news.
You know why this happens so much? It’s because they feel like they have nothing better to do, so they focus on this type of nonsense. And that’s why I believe you desperately need your own goals, visions and dreams, to put your mind to good use. If you lack goals, distractions tend to come into your life.
Let me share a strange story. A while back, I read Flash Crash, a book by Liam Vaughan. Navinder Sarao was a young man, obsessed by the financial markets. He spent all of his time buying and selling – I’m keeping it simple for brevity’s sake. And for some reason, he was much more succesful than his other colleagues. What stuck out to me, was how he would use noise-cancelling headphones, staring at his computer screen for hours on end, with a level of focus that others found hard to believe. While his colleagues were chatting away with each other, he spent every last ounce of his attention on buy and sell orders, which provided him with a sort of intuition for the market place, being able to get a sense for what was happening and knowing how to play the game. You might recognize it as being in the flow state. It’s a great thing to be able to achieve. If you can find something that gives you that level of focus this coming year, you’d be alright.
That’s the main thing I wanted to share.
Okay, I guess you want the rest of the story. Here goes.
Some years ago, something strange happened. Navinder Sarao’s constant buying and selling throughout the day no longer worked as well as it did. Turned out superfast algorithms had entered the game. Navinder was left feeling frustrated, seeing the ice melt beneath his feet. Deciding the game was rigged, he chose to do the same. He made a program which would exploit a weakness in the algorithm, which reacted fairly predictably to buy and sell orders at the time. With this program, he was able to enter or cancel buy and sell orders at lightning speed. This meant he could push around the algorithms just like he wanted to.
He made big money and got away for it some time, but then he accidentally caused a world wide financial crash in a matter of half an hour – flash crash, hence the book’s title. And soon afterwards, it was game over for Navinder Sarao. Feel free to read the book for more details.
Having said that, the reason for mentioning this book, is to encourage you to find a skill you want to master (preferably both ethical and legal), which gets you into flow – something positive to put your mind to. Food for thought!
Have a great year and see you next time!
Kind regards
Vincent J. Dancet