Whats up Cloud Heads!?
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Happy Sunday and especially Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there. Last week I mentioned writing a column like this on the weekends so that my grandma can read it. As I sit here now drinking my orange juice, my mind jumps to how many kids and adults out there are just trying to impress dad when it comes down to it? Probably a lot; and why not, who doesn’t want to impress their old man? Spoiler alert: the rest of this column is going to take a sharp turn into NBA basketball and trading, so hang with me. I can even hear my dad now, “I’m a boxing fan, not a basketball fan,” even though I see him on pins and needles during Warriors games. The thing that impresses my dad about boxing, is the same thing that dads have been impressed with since the beginning of dad-dom…fight! Taking a hit and getting back up. Failing, then prevailing! Well the Denver Nuggets can tell you a thing or two about failing, yet this past Monday, June 12, 2023 they hoisted the Larry O’Brien trophy as NBA Champions.
Sometimes the innocence of children can capture a moment in time so perfectly. While Denver, the NBA, and the sports world go completely nuts, while Serbia celebrates two of the best athletes in their sports being Serbian, while champagne bottles are sprayed as if they’re apple cider, Ognjena Jokić just watches her dad. There she sits, waiting for NBA commissioner Adam Silver to hand her dad the NBA Finals MVP trophy. You may have heard of him, and Nikola Jokić and his team have gone through the ringer to get there. “A lot of blood, sweat, and tears…and real ones,” as teammate Jamal Murray puts it, yet Ognjena simply sees her dad as a superhero larger than life, as most young kids do!
In case you forgot, Nikola Jokić wasn’t a high draft pick with game changing hype surrounding him. Picked #41 overall in the 2014 NBA draft, he actually landed with the Nuggets during a Taco Bell commercial, and he wasn’t even picked on live TV. He was seen as slow, unathletic, and as a poor defender. Doesn’t sound like much of a superhero, right? Jokić has had his share of success in the NBA before this season, winning two MVP trophies along the way, yet he’d say himself they are no comparison to winning a NBA championship. His first title was also the first for the Denver Nuggets and their fans, who have watched the team seemingly get close, but fail year after year. As Jokić said after the title clinching game, failure to reach the pinnacle as a team was a necessary step to finally win. “If you want to be successful, you need to be bad, then you need to be good, then when you’re good you need to fail, then when you fail you’re going to figure it out.” - Nikola Jokić. Taking a hit and getting back up. Another thing my dad always says is ‘they call you a journeyman because you’ve been on a journey,’ and it’s incredible to see a success such as Nikola Jokić admit that you need to fail, and that there is no short cut around it. “Experience is something that’s not ‘what happened to you,’ it’s what you’re going to do with that which happened to you.” - Nikola Jokić. The Denver Nuggets response to failure was not to hit the panic button and retreat, but to keep moving forward with a positive energy and belief in themselves. However, even beliefs come with their doubts.
(Image via Google Images)
For many of the Denver Nuggets, the opportunity was right in front of them to quit and lose hope. As a 1st round pick and still just 24 years old, Michael Porter Jr. has had 3 major surgeries to get here, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Bruce Brown were both seen as poor fits on their former teams, coach Mike Malone was fired from a prior head coaching job and seen as lacking the X factor to finish, and then there’s Jamal Murray who many see as the ‘Kobe to Nikola Jokić’s Shaq.’ After going through reconstruction on his torn ACL, the mental part of the recovery seemed to be his biggest challenge. He wouldn’t mix it up in the paint as much because he was more afraid of the physicality, he was tentative in attacking the basket, and as Jokić put it ‘sucked for the first 20 games of the season.’ In his press conference, Jamal Murray said “I had my doubts as well, and that’s just natural…when you doubt yourself, that’s what makes you try to find a way to turn it around. In whatever sport, in whatever injury, in whatever career that you’re in. When you go through adversity, it’s how you visualize yourself at the end of it.” I wonder if Jamal Murray visualized himself drunk off champagne at his NBA championship press conference?
(Image via Google Images)
As speculators, traders, and investors, this is pretty much the opposite of a team sport, but many of these concepts and emotions the Denver Nuggets faced are similar to ours. Failure, yes, big time. You will fail, and you will fail a lot just like I have and still do. If you are being responsible with your action in the stock market, you will fail repeatedly in the form of trading losses, but if you can keep them small, that’s part of the secret sauce to success. There will be other times where instead of taking a loss, you fail to catch a win because you doubt yourself and are afraid to take a loss, so didn’t even enter the trade! The longer we are involved in the market, the more we realize how the mental side of trading is the most important aspect. It’s not as much about a trading win or loss here and there, but your mental response to keep you balanced and grounded. Jamal Murray had to eventually trust his repaired knee and get back to playing like himself, just as a series of losses (or one big loss) will require you to trust in yourself again as a risk manager and in your process. Now as champions, the Nuggets will have to humble themselves to try it all over again next year, in the same way a series of wins (or one big win) will require you to stick with what’s working, rather than thinking you’re unbeatable and going all-in on the next trade. It’s not easy, it will hurt, you’ll doubt yourself along the way, think you should quit or that you can’t do it, but you’ve got to keep going. Taking a hit and getting back up. That’s it. As coach Mike Malone said, ‘…you go from a nobody to an upstart, from an upstart to a winner, from a winner to a contender, from a contender to a champion, from a champion to a dynasty…this is a many many years long process, and you don’t do it by yourself.’ Now since it’s Fathers Day, make sure to show some love to everyone who’s making sure that even though your trading journey is alone, you don’t do it by yourself!
That’s a wrap, and we hope you enjoyed a different way to look at the market, from things away from the market. Back to it tomorrow…
Shoot for the stars, and just maybe, you end up above the clouds.