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“Okay, so think about it like this, what if you were a competitive farmer?” 

It was an early Saturday and I was working with a trader (let’s call him Sam) in a private coaching session. I do my best work as a coach when I’m following my sometimes crazy intuition, and this often means going out on the edge beyond reason. I know that, but my inner dialogue, as I heard these words come out of my mouth, was something like, “Oh shit, what does that mean? How am I ever going to land this?” You want to be a trader, but what if you were a competitive farmer?

So, Sam’s issue is that he’s good at many things, and great at some of them. He’s a professional competitive athlete and lives much of his life in full competition mode. We had just reviewed a few months of swing trading, in which he’d pushed hard through a time I had (correctly) anticipated as being an adverse trading environment. His results were not stellar during that period, but we spent some time thinking about the coming months. My advice was to focus on doing the right thing and to not worry about results. He confessed that his concern was that he didn’t just want so-so performance—he wanted to excel so he could get that first $10 million dollars to launch a fund. He wanted to “crush it”.

So I said, “Okay, let’s imagine you’re a competitive farmer. Now, before you laugh—” he was laughing already—“it’s not as silly as you think. There are people who focus on growing exceptional foods, who take pride in that, and who have done so for generations. What if that’s what you were doing? If you want a great harvest, can you go out and yell at the corn, ‘Grow! Grow now! Grow right now, you stupid plant!’?

“Of course not. And you know, some years, there might be a drought. Maybe you have some years that you don’t get a great harvest. But if you’re doing the right things, when the weather is right, you’ll have a bounty.

“So what are those right things? Well, you can be sure you’re planting and harvesting in the best way. You can make sure you have the best seeds, and grow them in a way that maximizes whatever you’re going for—quality or yield. You can take good care of your equipment and do all the maintenance. You can hire good people and managers, pay them well while balancing your business needs, and take care of them. You can pay attention. You can care for the land. You can watch for pests and respond to them correctly…”

I went on just a bit longer, but eventually circled back. “The one thing you can’t do is go stand in a field and yell at your crops to grow. Some things are out of your control. But if you’re doing all those things right… on a good year when the weather is good and everything lines up? Wow.”

Sam saw the parallels to trading. We can’t rush growth, and much of a trader’s success depends on growth. We can cultivate, nurture, and be ruthless about weeding out weaknesses. We can be present. We can come back to the task, even after disappointment. There are areas where we can work very hard, with focus and one-pointed intent, and there are areas that reward investment of significant time. But a different kind of time—long time, growth time—and a different mindset—patience and space—are needed to let us be our best. You can’t force growth.

Rethink your own trading journey. Where are you pushing too hard? What needs more time? What are you ignoring? Where are you making excuses? Get that balance right, and success will follow.