I had no business being at a hedge fund.

At that point in my life, my previous job was doing IT Consulting and the entirety of my financial education consisted of reading Market Wizards (and a few more trading books).

Yes, I'm completely serious.

But I did understand the concept of being able to go short and long…so maybe I had that going for me.

The reality of the situation was that the Headhunter for the position was a fellow Hawaii native and I guess he just wanted to give me a shot.

Whatever the case, there I was…sitting at a tiny trading desk in Santa Monica, California.

The desk took up the entirety of the tiny room it sat in, with barely enough room to walk around it.

There were a total of six seats at the desk and the Bloomberg terminal was crammed in a corner.

I had the illustrious responsibility of reconciling Excel spreadsheets with the trades for the day, passing out P/L statements every morning, sending faxes, checking trades with counter parties and marking positions to market.

Pretty much everything short of getting coffee. But what do you expect with a Biology degree?

Working at this hedge fund is classified under the category of: coolest things that I have ever done, but would never do again.

Right up there with ATV riding (because I flipped mine) and deep sea fishing on 15 foot seas (for obvious reasons).

It was awesome because I got to sit at the same trading desk as one of the best Bond Arbitrage traders in the business.

I would never do it again because I am the absolute worst data entry clerk that has ever lived.

In addition, as cool as most people were there, that work environment wasn't for me.

However, I did learn a few important lessons from that experience that shaped my view of people and money.

Most of them surprised me, being a recent college graduate at the time and never having been in that type of environment before.

Be wary of anyone who cannot use some form of the word “fuck” as a noun, adjective and verb, in the same sentence

This is a rule of thumb that I still follow to this day.

Not that I necessarily appreciate gratuitous cussing, but if I sit down with someone for a coffee or a beer and I don't get so much as a “shit” out of them, then they could be prone to hiding stuff.

Not in a kleptomaniac kind of way, but in terms of holding back information and what they are really thinking.

My boss would use “fuck” like it went out of style 10 years ago and she wanted to bring it back retro.

I was slightly taken aback in the beginning.

But she is one of the most genuine, competent and caring people I have ever met.

Find your trading advantage and stick to it

One of the traders would sometimes only do a couple of trades in a week.

On a quiet week he would bullshit on the phone in hushed tones for 30 minutes, then walk over with his trade ticket.

Then he would sit around for the rest of the week, watching the markets, surfing a little porn and causing trouble.

He knew what his advantage was and the exploited the hell out of it when it was there and sat on his hands when it wasn't.

I saw his P/Ls every day and he was very consistent.

While everyone else was doing dozens of trades a week, he had the discipline to wait for the right conditions.

Badass traders aren't necessarily Zen

One of the best traders was normally a pretty quiet guy in most social situations.

But get him into a bad trade and copious desk pounding and aforementioned f-bombs started to drop like dollar bills at a strip bar.

But it seemed like it was all part of the fun and was a release for him when he was in a bad trade.

The bottom line is to figure out your emotional makeup and do what will get you centered as soon as possible.

Don't try to be like Buddha, when you really are like Chuck Norris.

Having a lot of money doesn't turn you into Gordon Gekko

With all of the good traders at that hedge fund, they started making a lot of money and were soon able to move out of that cramped office into some really awesome digs.

Maybe not Steve Cohen nice, but still pretty damn classy.

They started flying on private jets more often and their capital under management grew quickly.

During this whole time, everyone remained exactly the same.

They still held lunch parties for everyone at the company when it was someone's birthday (even little ol' me) and I didn't feel like anything changed.

Being responsible for that much money requires having much more integrity.

Regardless of what your parents told you.

Conclusion

This is probably the biggest thing that I learned there. On a busy week, there would literally be BILLIONS of dollars in trade tickets coming across my desk. But how was this possible?

They learned how to trade, found opportunities in the market, clicked the mouse a couple of times and established a track record (yeah, it's slightly more complicated than that).

They showed their record to investors and got more money to trade.

It's just based on ideas.

The best part is that ideas are free.

Along the same lines, I also learned that some people there, in spite of their high salaries were just as broke as I was.

That was a revelation to me.

They had really nice homes, beautiful cars and their kids went to expensive private schools.

But they were only a couple of paychecks away from the poorhouse.

Being in that kind of financial situation is also based on how you think of money.

The post 5 Unexpected Lessons I Learned Working at a Hedge Fund appeared first on Trading Heroes.

The internet can be a great place to hang out, but it can also be very impersonal.

Everyone is reduced to their profile picture and the 150 characters in their bio.

So here's some personal information about me. I hope that this helps you get to know me a little better and also hope that we get to meet in person one day.

Alright, here we go…

1: I used to work at a hedge fund, but…

When I tell people that I used to work at a hedge fund, they assume that I was a trader. So I always have to explain that I was just an assistant on the trading desk.

It was my second “real” job out of college, I had a degree in Biology, and zero finance experience.

In other words, I didn't belong there.

But a series of fortunate events led me to working at the fund.

The recruiter for the company was a guy from Hawaii. He wanted to give another Hawaii guy a chance, so he presented my resume to the company.

I did well at the interview and I got the job.

Although I was not a trader and they traded my least favorite market, bonds, it was a fantastic experience. I got to observe real traders and how they handled the stresses of daily trading.

It also expanded my consciousness to literally see billions of dollars of trades go past my desk every week. 

2. Soccer is my favorite sport but I started playing because…

I started soccer quite a bit later than most kids. I was always the worst player on the team, until about high school.

After that, I turned out to be pretty good.

What most people don't know, is that I didn't sign up for soccer because I wanted to be like Ronaldo or Pele.

I originally joined because there were cute girls.

But it turned out to be a sport that I liked and I still enjoy playing and watching.

3: How I stumbled into Forex…

The short story is that I answered an ad in the LA Times for a currency trader position.

This “position” turned out to be a small office that taught people how to trade, then gave them access to the fairly new retail Forex market. You had to bring your own money, but they would help you trade it.

In order to place a trade, you had to go up to a physical window and give the clerk your paper trade ticket. Then she would call it in to the broker on the phone.

That's how long ago that was.

The crazy thing is that I figured out many years later, that me and Walter Peters went through that same training program at around the same time. We probably just missed each other by a few months.

It truly is a small world. 

4: I used to be able to pound beers, but now…

As I've done more and more inner work on myself, I don't feel like drinking alcohol.

It's an odd feeling.

I wasn't a heavy drinker before (except in college), but I liked to have a beer after work, once or twice a week. Occasionally, I did have a lot to drink, since I have a naturally high tolerance.

But no more.

Nowadays, I'll have a drink at a party, or if I'm hanging out with friends. But I won't buy a drink to have at home, or go out of my way to get a drink, like I did before.

Beer really scrambles my brain, so I try to avoid that as much as possible. Whiskey, tequila and red wine are mostly OK, if I just have one or two. So if I do have a drink, I'll get one of those.

Otherwise, I avoid alcohol as much as possible.

If you start doing a lot of inner work, the same thing might happen to you. 

Nowadays, I prefer Kava bars. They are a great non-alcoholic alternative and you can actually get a buzz with kava or kratom, without the hangover. 

5: Until about the age of 25, I was super…

I had friends and dated, but it took me a long time to warm up to people and I was very introverted.

I had a hard time starting a conversation with people I didn't know. I would purposely avoid people at work so I wouldn't even have to say “hello.”

One thing that helped me a lot was the book Trading, Sex and Dying. I recommend it because it was the first book that explained what was going on in my head and helped me embrace it.

I am the Counterphobic Reflective personality type in that book.

Once I was comfortable with the way that I was built, it gave me more confidence and I realized that being an introvert does have its advantages.

6: I have a yellow belt in…

If you don't know how the belt colors work in Aikido, beginners start at white belt. If they pass one test, then they graduate to yellow belt.

That's where I'm at. 

After a yellow belt, you have to take 4 more tests to become a black belt. After that, there are 10 degrees of black belt. At least that's how the modern system works.

My Dad has taught Aikido for most of his life, so I decided to take his classes for a couple of summers. Martial arts don't interest me that much, but I'm glad that I tried it out.

7: My favorite book is…

There are so many great books out there, so it's tough to name just one favorite. It's like trying to name your favorite ice cream flavor or sports car.

But these books are at the very top of my list.

Atlas Shrugged

It took me a few months to finish this book.

The book is really long and the print is really small.

….and I'm a slow reader.

But it is a fantastic book. It's basically a fable on the value of self reliance and personal responsibility.

I read this book back in the late 1990s.

Back then, I thought it had a lot of good ideas.

As of 2022, I'm thinking that the events in that book might actually come true.

It could turn out to be a prophecy.

Regardless of what you think, it's a great read and gets you thinking about your core morals and principles.

The Law of One Series

This is a series of 5 books that are a collection of transcripts from sessions with a medium who claimed to channel beings from another dimension.

Yes, I know that might sound ridiculous.

But hear me out…

I've cross-checked the information in these books with ancient teachings from many other cultures and most of the information pretty much agrees with what other cultures have been saying for centuries.

So while I don't believe everything that these books say, I think that the information is mostly on the right track and can be useful in helping us understand how our world works.

If you have an open mind, this is totally worth a read.

8: I pay attention to…

This may seem weird, but I'm very aware of people's wrists. Experience has shown me that I can get a lot of information about a person, just by looking at what they wear.

These are by no means hard and fast rules, nor judgements.

Simply general observations that have turned out to be true, more often than not.

• If a person wears a watch or bracelet made of metal, they tend to be more concerned with quality and take a longer-term view of things.
• People with gold colored watches tend to be focused on themselves.
• If someone has a plastic digital watch, they are usually very pragmatic and tend to be conservative in their thinking.
• People who wear watches with leather bands tend to be more laid back.
• If their watch is more than 5 minutes fast, they are usually late to appointments.
• If they don't wear anything on their wrists, then they tend to have a lot of confidence in themselves, in a good way.
• People who wear Apple watches tend to be easily distracted.
• If someone is wearing a blacked out Garmin watch, they are probably very dangerous or a huge poser. It's best not to get them mad until you figure out which one you're dealing with.

Next time you meet someone new, check their wrists and see if my observations match your experience.

9: When I was a kid, all I wanted was…

My hero growing up was Ellison Onizuka. I used to draw space shuttles all the time.

I was heartbroken when the Challenger blew up.

My parents sent me to Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama.

That was also the first time I saw snow and sat through a tornado watch.

The great news is that in a few years, I'll probably be able to go into space…without all the astronaut training.

10: The most terrifying and liberating experience of my life was the day…

When I was much younger, I went out surfing on a day that was well beyond my skill level. Until then, I had only been out on days when the waves were about 12 feet high, at most.

But there I was, out on a day that was seeing 16 and even up to 20 foot faces. And this was on the North Shore of Oahu, not a wave tank in Arizona.

It was scary AF.

I could have been seriously injured or even killed.

No joke.

Once I was done freaking out, a deep sense of calm came over me.

I knew that whatever happened, happened. It was mostly out of my hands. After I calmed down, I stayed out of trouble until a smaller wave came through and I caught it in.

I don't want to push it that far again, but it was a very spiritual experience. It toned down some things in my life and made me realize that I don't have to go to extremes.

11: A ghost messed with me and my girlfriend had to save me from…

No, I cannot prove that it was a ghost.

…and yes, I could be full of shit.

But something weird did happen. 

I went on a ghost tour in Honolulu awhile back and we stopped at an office building that was said to be haunted by the ghost of the young son of a Hawaiian King. The boy was supposedly notorious for stealing candy from the bowls in the offices and the wrappers would be found on top of his picture, hanging in the hallway.

Before we got there, I tried to spit out my gum, but it got stuck to my fingers. The whole time we were at that site, I was rubbing my fingers together, trying to get the gum off. Then as I looked into the glass front door of the building, I slowly started to feel a numbness creep up my body, until I actually fainted.

That was really weird because I've only fainted once before. The other time, I was still under the influence of an anesthetic, walking out of a dentist's office, while I had a pretty bad flu.

Back to the ghost story…

My 110 pound girlfriend at the time, had to throw her entire body into my back to prevent me from hitting the concrete head first. I'm really grateful she was there, otherwise I would have ended up in the emergency room.

Sadly, that was the only exciting part of the tour and my buddy thought that I had fallen asleep standing up. But it did open my eyes to the possibility that there are things out there that we don't fully understand yet.

12: Samurais, but…

I am full Japanese, but I don't know much about sushi, Bon Dancing and the “Banzai” toast at weddings.

I was actually publicly corrected after doing a toast because I pronounced one of the words wrong.

How embarrassing. 

My Dad's side of the family are decedents of samurai families. I am proud of my heritage. But it's very foreign culture to me because I'm 4th generation Japanese-American and I'm so far removed.

More Information

• Here's my bucket list. I would recommend that you make one too. It gives you the motivation to keep improving in your trading.
• This is the short list of causes I support.
• To keep up with what I'm doing, follow me on Instagram

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The post 12 Things Most People Don’t Know About Me appeared first on Trading Heroes.