Transcription
Hello, it's IOT. So, in this video, I'm going to share with you four very simple life principles to implement that personally allowed me to achieve the majority of my goals in my twenties, allowed me to accumulate a fortune of several million euros. And all of that, I want to say, with elegance, meaning without having sacrificed my entire twenties in a way, and which allows me today to finally live a life in which, I'll be honest with you, I am ultra fulfilled and I am ultra happy. And I'm not telling you this to say "Ah, look how happy I am" and so on. Not at all. It's because the four principles I'm about to share with you come from a professional deformation. So for my part, my whole life, the only profession I've ever had is trader. And so, precisely, these four principles are principles that fundamentally come from my trading profession on the financial markets. The act of speculating on the financial markets, which I have applied to my personal life. And I think that these four principles, if you apply them in your own personal life, and you absolutely don't need to be a trader, investor, or anything like that, it has nothing to do with it. I seriously think that it can completely transform your life, make your life more beautiful, simpler, and in a way, I like this word, but more elegant.
So, this first principle is a principle that traders understand very quickly through their experience, but that unfortunately many people completely ignore. And this principle is that the result of something is uncontrollable. The only thing we can control is the process to arrive at that result. So in my profession, for example, on each position, each speculation, each investment that a trader makes, there is a whole set of data, of reasons for wanting to take a certain investment, and the probabilities are supposed to be in the trader's favor. Now, on a given decision, the outcome is completely uncertain. That is to say, I make an investment, I take a trade, whatever, I have no idea of the outcome of it. And that's why very often in this profession, it's very dangerous to set monetary goals, for example. Because this result, you cannot control it. The only thing you can control is all the decisions, the entire process that leads you to make these decisions. And if you focus only on this process, the result should then arrive. And it's exactly the same thing in everyday life outside of financial markets. If we take the example of happiness now, happiness is a consequence. Happiness is a result. We cannot directly provoke happiness. It comes as a result of the accumulation of micro-actions that lead to happiness. Someone who wants money, it's the same thing. The only thing they can focus on is their knowledge. It's their skills, it's their discipline, it's their habits. And money will come as a result of this process. But we cannot focus on the result, only on the process. Exactly in the same way. Someone wants to have an Apollonian body, abs, whatever you want. They won't be able to focus on that result. The only thing they can focus on is their diet, their discipline, their sleep, going to the gym, tracking their calories. Again, only the process. But because I'm going to say something from experience, the result shows up when it wants to, but it often shows up late compared to what we would like. But always faithful. That is to say, the result always follows the process, and that on the positive side as well as the negative side. I can't share with you the number of examples I have of people I've known who, in their process, let's say, did many things that were really, let's say, borderline, or with which I don't agree at all. But many other people, let's say the collective set of values would say that what this person does is wrong and bad, and yet this person perhaps had success or had money or had results. Very well. But wait a moment, the result always comes sooner or later and always follows the process.
So the second cheat code that I learned in trading but that I apply in my everyday life is to always think in terms of risk to reward. That is to say, what is the potential risk of doing an action and what do I gain from doing this action? If you ask yourself this question for all your decisions, I promise you that you will already manage to avoid 95% of bad decisions. If we take this example in a purely financial context, so on financial markets or even at the casino, we agree that going to the casino, playing roulette and risking 100 euros to win 30 is stupid. You're not going to risk 100 bucks to potentially only win 30 bucks. And unfortunately, people in their everyday lives make many decisions where they have a significant risk of taking this action or saying a certain thing, and they have absolutely nothing to gain, and yet they still take this action. So this kind of principle just requires a little bit of introspection before doing something. But for example, you're talking to your spouse, your partner, whatever, you want to tell them something about, I don't know, a girl who just walked by, ask yourself the question. What is the risk for me to tell her this little piece of information which, in the end, serves no purpose? It's a bit of blabla. But what is the risk for me to say that? Well, there's a high chance she'll get annoyed or feel bad or start thinking "Oh, okay, so he looks at other women." And what is the reward? So what is the gain in saying something like that? If you think about it, there's none, but there's absolutely zero. So you're again in a situation where you have a potential risk with no potential gain. So what is the best decision? You keep quiet. Perhaps now, in your professional activity, in your business, in your trading, in your investments, whatever, you've had a record month, you've made a lot of money, and so you want to share it with certain people. Here again, depending on the people, think carefully. What is the risk for me to announce with my mouth wide open that I made so much money this month? What is the potential risk of saying that? Think about it. Perhaps there is. Perhaps people will want to take advantage of you more. Perhaps people will see you a little differently. It might bias their view of you, especially if they are at a different level than you. Now, if you think about it, what is the potential gain from that? Uh, yeah, a little boost to your ego for about 10-15 seconds when everyone tells you "Oh wow, that's incredible, congratulations." Ah yes, that feels good. But you see that the gain isn't huge, right? It's 10-15 seconds of a little ego boost. You look at the risk, you look at the potential gain. Again, is it really worth saying it? I don't know. But so I want you to think in terms of what do I have to risk? What do I have to gain in any situation, in any aspect of your life?
Now, the next principle that if you apply in your everyday life will drastically improve your life, is the act of basing all your decisions and actions on data, so on facts, on real facts and not on feelings or emotions. You see, a trader or an investor generally learns very quickly that human emotions are enemy number one because they only lead to bad decisions. No emotional decision on the financial markets leads to good results, leads to good decisions. My question for you is, do you think that in your everyday life, it's the same thing or magically it's different? Of course not. You see, the problem is that our brain exaggerates, it dramatizes absolutely everything. But so it becomes very complicated in the end, every day, to make good decisions. And in the end, where you are in your life is just an accumulation of all the decisions you've made since birth that have led you to be where you are today. But so now, ask yourself, where would you be in your life if every decision you had made was based on real facts, logical facts? Strategic in relation to your situation. It's like in poker, you can't choose the cards you have, but with the cards you have, you can choose the best possible decision. It's the same in chess, you don't know what the opponent will do, you're in a situation, but the question to ask yourself is, what is the strategic move I can make in my current situation? Based on real facts, based on logic and not on my emotions? Oh, I'm fed up, etc. So I'm going to do this. Ask yourself, where would you be today if all your decisions were based on pure, hard logic?
So, generally speaking, first thing, avoid any impulsive decisions. Whatever you do impulsively, it usually ends badly. It can be in the middle of an argument, okay? It can be a message you're going to send to a family member, to your partner, or even a business that might have potentially ripped you off, etc. When you're in that heated moment, writing that message, you already know from experience that this message won't be good. This message won't be good. It will be put in a way that isn't good because there are too many emotions, there's too much charge at that moment. So all you have to do is wait. Let it be a day. The message you send on Monday or Tuesday is the same thing. But on Tuesday, there's a much higher chance that your message will be much more thoughtful and won't cause additional problems. If you also focus only on facts and truly set emotions aside, it should prevent impulsive purchases. I see many people who make impulsive purchases and then regret them. But these impulsive purchases come solely from emotions and not from real facts or data. Because real facts are if you really ask yourself, do I really need this? Will I continue to use it in 2 months? If I calculate the price it costs me compared to the number of times I'll use it, is it really worth it? These are the logical, real, strategic questions to ask. And you see, in trading, emotions for a trader cost money, unfortunately. But in everyday life, it's even worse. It doesn't necessarily cost money, although it can cost money, but it also costs you relationships, it costs you mental energy, it costs you time. So you absolutely have to do this introspection work to succeed in separating real facts from logic. Again, in my personal situation, when I have a somewhat major problem in my life or whatever, I will write down all the real facts. Okay? Because writing down emotions, generally, you feel a bit silly because you know very well that it's an emotion. But so write down the real facts, write down the real facts, and then you can acknowledge how you feel. Okay? The goal is not to suppress our emotions and be like a robot. No, it's just to be aware of them. Okay? And so, as I say, you can write down the truths, the logic, the real facts. What happened? Perhaps you have a problem, what are the real problems you are facing. And then reflect on how you feel. And that's where you can analyze and really see how you feel. And how these emotions differ from logic? Because in the end, by looking at your emotional load, you can generally know if, well, what kind of action or what kind of reaction you would have from a purely emotional point of view. And you look now at the logic, this is what I should do. And again, you pause, perhaps you give yourself a day to, again, always make the most strategic decisions in your situation.
Now, the 4th cheat code that comes from the world of trading but that has personally completely changed all aspects of my life is the act of planning absolutely everything you do. And that's also why, right here in my office, I have the phrase "Planning with a sense of urgency." So the act of planning with a sense of urgency. So the sense of urgency is just to go a little faster because life is long but at the same time not that long. But so, above all, the important thing is to plan. When I say plan, I mean plan your days, whether it's the day before for the next day or in the morning for the day ahead. I invite you to check out this video where I talk about my planning method in more detail, but anyway, so the act of planning your days, planning your weeks, planning your quarters, planning your years, and now even outside of temporality, planning different possible scenarios. The objective of planning is, and we come back to my previous point about making logical decisions and not emotional ones. Planning your whole life will allow you to do that because the objective in trading when we plan is not to be in the middle of a trade, in the middle of an investment, and have to make important decisions while we have a lot of emotional charge within us. Obviously, the decisions in general will not be very good. Whereas if you have planned everything when you were clear-headed with perfect logic, well, afterwards, when you have emotions within you, you don't need to make big decisions. There are no decisions to make. You just have to follow the plan. And if you fail, well, the mistake is obvious. It's just that, well, you didn't follow your plan. And unfortunately, but I think a large majority of people on Earth plan absolutely nothing and are completely lost in their lives. But again, it's normal. If there were no plan, people wouldn't even ask themselves the questions of what they really want, what do they want? When do they want it? These are very important questions. If these are questions you never ask yourself, so you don't have the answer and you don't plan for it, well, in fact, you live your life on autopilot and you let all external distractions push and pull you in different directions. And in the end, society, the world, some people would call it the Matrix, pushes you into certain boxes. Okay? Other people make the choices for you. Whereas if you really sit down, you really ask yourself the questions, what do I want, when do I want it, what is possible? What is not possible? And so on and so forth. And you plan everything to achieve these goals, if we can call them that. But for me, it's not even so much about goals, it's just I want this. How do I get this? Well, I need all of this. Okay, well, I'll do all of this. Okay. And when I talk about planning, I've talked about planning, let's say, a bit in work. I've also talked about planning your days, your weeks, your quarters, your year, etc. This can again very often be related to work. But this planning, you can also apply it to your personal life. You can plan your vacations just as well as you plan your work. One thing to know is that planning solves problems before they even arise. Why? Because when you plan, you do a job of anticipation, okay? You plan certain things by asking yourself what will happen as a result of this. So in fact, you anticipate different scenarios and therefore you plan according to these different scenarios. I'm going to share a very personal example, so don't take it out of context. But this year, for example, I had a very nice evening, a superb evening, and I had my girlfriend with me. I had my girlfriend at this party and we had a big beautiful table and there were other women. There were other women at this party and one thing led to another, it was a bit of a boozy party and so on. During this party, my girlfriend, at the moment, I didn't realize it, but the next day, she explained it to me, she was a little upset because, well, I didn't pay much attention to her and I didn't give her as much attention as she would have liked, and there were many other women around us, etc., and perhaps I was a bit more here and there, let's say. And so the next day she told me about it, and indeed it's something that, well, didn't make her feel very good, which I completely understand. But obviously, you can imagine, I didn't do it on purpose at a party, etc., anyway, you don't really realize it. Four months later or something like that, we have another big party, a party of this kind with, again, the table, other women, etc., etc. Well, okay, very good. Before going to this party, I did this work of anticipation, so of planning. What did I tell myself? I told myself that at this new party, there's a risk. The risk is exactly the same as last time. It's that I have a very, very good time and that perhaps, well, I forget a little bit where I am with my girlfriend and that, well, it goes a bit here and there, etc. So, what is the risk at this new party? The risk is the same as last time, which is that perhaps she'll have that feeling where she'll look, she'll feel perhaps a little alone, perhaps that I, in the heat of the moment, etc., will be a little less present and a little here and there, etc. So by anticipation and planning, what did I do? Downstairs from my place, there's a pharmacy that sells small cards. I bought a small card, it cost €1.50, and on the card, I just wrote "Tonight, you're the most beautiful." Something like that, you put it in an envelope. I kept this envelope more or less in terms of risk management because I know that the risk of this party is that something like this happens and that, at some point, they get a little upset or they get a little sulky or something like that. Very well. I have this, I have this joker, if you will, this joker that comes from planning, that comes from anticipation, and it's not that I'm too cute or that I have the money to do it because again, it costs a few bucks, but at this party, I knew that if there was a moment or a dip, or if I messed up a bit, or if there was a moment that came to pose this risk, this problem, I knew that this little card would solve all the problems. And fast forward, in the end, this party went very well. So this card, I didn't need it, in a way. I just took it out at one point, gave it to her, it made her evening, and from her point of view or from the point of view of many people, it would be like, wow, how involved he is. But honestly, it's not so much about involvement, it's more about anticipation and planning. You just plan when you do things. It's literally as simple as that. After, obviously, there are Sundays, you can chill, there are moments when you can relax your mind. But what I mean by that is that generally, anticipate and plan. So, in short, this is a video topic that I'm very passionate about, in a way, because as I told you, for me, it's truly a huge professional deformation. Since I was 14, I've been trading. I've never worked in anything else. It's the only skill I have. And so the deformation in my personal life is enormous. But I truly feel that this professional deformation has been almost entirely positive and has allowed me to achieve many goals outside of the financial objective, trading, finance, and has allowed me to live a life in which I am truly fulfilled and I am extremely happy. Again, not because I'm trying to be happy, no, but because I focus on the process and I put everything in place so that the result, well, arrives. And again, the result can arrive late. Anyway, well, we're going back to my point number 1 or number 2. On that note, I hope this video, different from your usual, pleased you. As you know, generally on this YouTube channel, I mostly share videos about finance, trading, investment. But so again, let me know if you like slightly different videos. On that note, it was Liot. Have a very good evening, day, I don't know. Ciao!