To Walk the Edge

My favorite event at the winter Olympics, besides obviously the hockey tournament, is the downhill ski race.  I grew up skiing here in the northeast, which means I grew up skiing primarily on ice.  If not for the fact that skiing takes place in uncomfortably cold temperatures most of the time, I would probably have pursued it as a serious sports endeavor.  I’ve since switched over to the snowboard, it feel a bit more like surfing, not quite, but just enough to remind me of how stupid I am for being dressed up in 4 layers freezing my ass of instead of being in some tropical climate swimming in 80 degree water.  But I digress.

The specific downhill ski event I love the most is the Super G competition.  If you aren’t familiar, skiers hurtle themselves down a ridiculously steep hill primarily made of ice (to make the speeds greater), catching crazy amounts of air off massive hills, and maneuvering around hair pin turns, hence the name Super G.

If you’ve ever been skiing you understand the physics behind the sport.  Your speed is all about how fast you are willing to go, times the incline of the hill you’re skiing.  You control speed by angling your skis across the mountain and shifting your weight back up the hill on your back leg.  To go faster, just point straight down and lean forward.  For each individual, there is a speed at which they can go, given their physical ability, without being out of control on the mountain.  As your skills improve, that speed increases.

The Super G competition is very simple in my mind, it’s all about which skier has the physical talent and mental ability to walk that finest of lines between skiing as fast as physics and their body will allow them, and not being out of control.  Frankly, given the amazing physical talents and preparation of all the athletes in competition, I believe the difference in performance is 80% mental, and 20% physical.

This equation is generally true for just about anything you do in life.  The standard deviation in physical ability across people is so small, the mental ability, huge.  But not all things in life, or all sports for that matter, posses the risk of physical injury as a penalty for stepping across that fine line between pushing the limits of your physical ability and being out of control.  The element of physical danger adds something to the equation that strikes at a very primordial spot in our being.

Where that line is for an individual can only be discovered through failure and pain, I can attest to this first hand.  As well, it takes failure to mentally train yourself in allowing your body to test the physical limits and remove your mind from being the breaks that prevent your from performing at the max.  Growing up surfing big waves, I know first hand that your mind can severely limit your physical abilities until you can free yourself from the shackles of fear.  And in my experience, it happens all at once, light flipping a light switch off.  You come to realize what your physical limits are and how hard you can push until the world, or in my case a huge wave, comes crashing down on you.  I only learned this lesson through almost drowning and being raked across the top of a reef in Costa Rica.  It takes failure to learn your limits.

Ask any big wave surfer, and they will also tell you that there are two different types of fear.  The first is the kind I just spoke about, the one that you must overcome in order to push yourself to the limit of your ability.  It is mostly psychological fear, and is ofter unsubstantiated given the real risk of injury.  The second is a fear mechanism that is more deeply ingrained in our DNA, it is part of the animal instinct we all share.  It is the essence of self preservation.  This type of fear is extremely important to have, those without it end up dying.  Watch the video below and you’ll understand exactly what I’m talking about.

Pushing your limits in life, whatever it is that you’re doing is key to fulfilling your potential.  Personally, I’ve only felt the same fear as surfing big waves in one other aspect of my life, trading.  I’ve actually physically felt the same type of fear as when surfing big waves or skiing on the edge, risk is a powerful thing.  I always like to say, there is only one emotion in the market, fear, fear of loss and fear of not having enough.  Conquering that fear which restricts your ability to perform at your peak ability given the skills you have acquired is so important to your success as a trader.  Confidence is the opposite side of the same sword, but I feel the side that cuts hardest is fear.  We must all push ourselves to throw off the shackles of doubt and fear regarding how far we can push our skills in the market, and like anything else, only failure can teach us where the line is.  Personally, I know that I have much work to do in this regard.  And just as a 10 year old does not surf 40 foot waves, and could not possibly know whether he has conquered that fear, there are aspects of trading and money management that I don’t have any way of experiencing fear in.  I don’t run 500 million dollars and am not able to even comprehend what it takes mentally to do so.  Hopefully one day I’ll get the chance to walk that edge, fail, succeed, and move on to surf bigger waves.

I love watching the Super G competition because it allows the viewer to experience just a little taste of that fear, watching the athletes test their limits and conquer them.  I understand the emotion that they experience after they’ve left it all on the hill, win or lose, and for a few minutes I can join them.

So while you are watching the Super G competition this week, ask yourself these questions: have you pushed yourself to the limit in whatever aspect of life you are focused on?  Do you know where that line is for you?  Do you understand the ultimate risk involved?  Have you stepped across that line and experienced the necessary failure?

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