The Blame Game and the Pattern Day Trading Rule

Dario Wunsch is professional gamer in a game called Starcraft. Starcraft is a 1 versus 1, real time strategy game where a player has the choice among three unique races to play. Since Starcraft is a computer game created by people, it inherently has imperfections and balance issues among the different races. Discussion on the balance between each race pairing has become a regular occurrence. I once had to opportunity to ask Dario on his thoughts of the current balance state of the game. I was accustom to players complaining about why one thing was too strong while another thing was too weak so I was quite surprised by Dario's answer. He said that there probably were certain imbalances in the game but that he did not concern himself with them. He said that having the mentality that something is wrong with the game discourages your practice because the player blames the game and not himself. If a player believes that his success is dependent on the game design more than his ability, the battle is already lost.

Dario Wunsch

Dario possessed a strong internal locus of control. He kept a positive attitude and always reflected on himself to see how he could improve and did not waste time complaining about things out of his control. I notice this same mentality in top athletes. A top athlete always blames himself for a loss, not his team. He does not blame the referees, the weather, or anything else. He instead reflects on what he could have done differently, thus improving himself for the next game.

Kobe Bryant - Constantly looking to improve himself

In trading, there is a rule called the Pattern Day Trading Rule where a trader with an account under $25,000 can only make three round trip, day trades in a five day rolling period. The brokerage that I use bars the trader from opening the fourth trade as to prevent any possibility for violation of this rule. Today, I had a trade setup that I had been watching for weeks. The chart unraveled just as I had speculated but when I went to enter the trade, my brokerage prevented me. Naturally, the stock price exploded and I missed out on hundreds of dollars. I posted an angry tweet about my brokerage and blamed them for this missed trade. I can moan all I want but I cannot do anything to change my brokerage's policy. What I can do is to place blame on myself. I did not keep track of my daytrades and had no idea that I had hit my third one. I could have planned more carefully since I knew that this great trade setup was near fruition. There were several things I could have done to prevent this miss but instead I blamed my brokerage.

I find that I often place blame on things outside of my control when trading. I blame my brokerage for not having shares to borrow, blame others for degrading a stock that I own, blame school for making me miss crucial trading time. It is much easier to pass blame, and there are always a countless number of possible scapegoats. Passing blame protects your psyche from shame and self-degradation but at the same time inhibits progress. As soon as we subscribe to an external locus of control, we subconsciously stop trying and inevitably fail. I cannot control these outside factors, I can only control what I do. Therefore, I must learn to reflect on what I could have done differently and improve myself for the future. Only then will I, too, be a champion.

-Still Broke