Trader’s Narrative

There is a fascinating story in the New York Times this weekend about Lewis Gordon Pugh, a British man dubbed the Ice Bear for his amazing ability to swim in extremely cold water:

The above picture is of Lewis’ latest attempt to break the world record for cold water swimming. He accomplished it by swimming 6 lengths of a frozen lake in Norway (1200 meters) in almost 24 minutes.

It is an inspiring example of the amazing abilities of the human mind and body. As you’re reading the article, pay close attention to how Lewis constructs his own reality and dismisses naysayers who tell him he can’t do it. There is a very valuable life lesson there for all of us.

Of course, he doesn’t simply refuse to accept ‘reality’, he has a talented and competent team behind him who prepared him for his amazing feat. But he never would have been able to accomplish his goal, had he not consciously built his own reality. Whether he realizes it or not, Lewis is a student of radical constructivism.

This is the philosopy or school of thought that says that knowledge of the world does not exist per se, as objective reality. Instead, it is built or constructed by an individual through their experiences, biases, etc. This is the foundation of such diverse fields as cybernetics, artificial intelligence, hypnotherapy and NLP. This is also the underlying approach that Ari Kiev takes when he coaches traders at SAC Capital.

In the coming days I’ll share a simple and practical application of this so you can see what I mean.

Source: NY Times article: “The Ice Bear Cometh, Wearing Nothing but a Speedo”.
(Use BugMeNot to access article).