Read Time: 4 Minutes

Happy Sunday and happy Father's Day to all you dads out there. Here are a few things that I've discovered, done, or learned over the last week. I hope you enjoy.

Gear Find of the Week: The Kid Caddie

This one is for all of you parents that enjoy golfing. The Kid Caddie is a genius invention that turns your stroller into a golf push cart; allowing you to take your kids with you on your next golf outing. Pre-orders just opened up and shipping is expected to begin at the end of June. 

I wish this had been around 4 or 5 years ago when my kids weighed a few pounds less, but I still plan on picking one up in the coming weeks.

My Trading Rules & Morning Routine

The past few weeks, I've found myself making some dumb mental mistakes while trading $SPY options. After reviewing my trades and talking with my trading mentor, I realized that I was letting my fear/greed emotions get the best of me. On multiple occasions, I either FOMO bought, overtraded, revenge traded, or hesitated when entering good trades.

I know that mastering my emotions is the key to becoming a good trader, so this week, I spent time creating a list of non-negotiable trading rules to help me conquer my bad habits.

Below, I've shared my new trading rules and also my morning trading routine. Keep in mind, this is not a "one size fits all" set of rules. Every trader has their own bad habits that require their own unique set of trading rules.

Eric's Trading Rules:

1. No trading until everything on my Morning Routine Checklist has been completed. 
2. No trading unless I feel completely locked in, focused, and free of negative thoughts. 
3. No re-entering a trade immediately after that same trade has been stopped out.
4. Risk 1% of my trading account on each trade
5. No moving my stop losses or profit targets as price approaches
6. Maximum of 3 trades per day
7. Maximum of 1 counter-trend trade per day
8. No trading after 11:30 am EST
9. All trades must be pre-planned with pre-set limit orders. No market buying allowed.
10. Every afternoon, I must review my trades from that day and add all trade details + lessons learned to my trading journal. 
11. If I break a rule, I have to do 25 pull-ups, 50 push-ups, and 100 air squats before I can place another trade that day.
12. If I break two rules in one day, I cannot trade the following day.

Eric's Morning Trading Routine:

• Do at least 10 minutes of mindfulness/meditation to calm my mind
• Get at least 5 minutes of fresh air
• See if there are any significant economic releases or news events that could impact trading that day
• Look at higher time frame charts (1 week, 1 day, 1 hour, 15 minute) to determine the trend and any key price levels that might come into play that day.
• Mark up my chart with key price levels, the prior day’s high and low, notable pre-market levels, and any relevant trend lines
• Write down a trading plan according to how I think $SPY will move that day.
• Review my trading rules, trading reminders, and trading setups
  

Book Recommendation: Atomic Habits

Atomic Habits​ is probably the most impactful book that I've read over the last 5 years. In it, author James Clear shares his framework for creating good habits, breaking bad habits, and getting 1 percent better every day.

My biggest takeaway from the book was that we should spend less time focusing on our goals/desired outcomes and more time focusing on the daily habits & systems that ultimately lead to the desired results. As James puts it, "Goals are good for planning your progress and systems are good for actually making progress". 

Here's how I apply this to my life: When I set goals, I ask myself, "What are the daily actions that I need to take to accomplish this goal?"

Then I focus solely on those daily actions. The daily actions actually become the goal. 

So if my desired outcome is to sign 5 new web design clients each month, my daily actions might be something like this:

• Send 50 cold emails to prospects each day
• Cold call 20 businesses each day
• Spend 2 hours training or recruiting salespeople each week

If my end goal is to lose 30 pounds this year, my daily actions might be something like this: 

• Do 30 minutes of cardio & weight training each day
• Meal prep 5 days worth of healthy lunches each Sunday
• Avoid soda and other sugary drinks
• Take the stairs instead of the elevator at work each day

When you train your mind to focus on daily actions and habits like this, the desired outcomes tend to take care of themselves. 

This is just one of the many lessons that I took away from the book. If you haven't read Atomic Habits yet, I'd highly encourage you to pick up a copy.

That's it for this week. I hope you've discovered something useful, interesting, or entertaining. See ya next week!

- Eric