"Winning" conjures up thoughts of luck. A lack of skill. You wouldn't go to work as a teacher, bus driver, electrician or any other "normal" job and say, "I won my payslip!"...so why do we use this terminology in trading? Does that not encourage the gaming mentality that gets so many people, myself included, financially slaughtered??
Similarly, "Losing" brings to mind failure. Being less than. But when we pay for a train ticket to get to work, or buy some food etc. we don't think of that money as lost but, rather, spent. Same monetary result, different psychological framing.
"We pay the market to find out whether we are right or wrong in our analysis"- This is what Tim Racette told me in a recent E-mail exchange over the Christmas period (thanks Tim!). There is no winning or losing. Just revenue/earnings and costs. At least this is true if you have a tried and tested trading methodology...
Sincere thanks also to Pete from Everydayaware for reminding me just how important the words we use are for cultivating the behaviours we want to adopt.
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