RELENTLESS POSITIVITY

What Traders Can Learn from The Relentless Positivity of Ryan Serhant

I first saw Ryan Serhant on the Bravo TV show Million Dollar Listing New York. The show followed Serhant and a group of elite real estate agents through the grind of transacting in the most competitive real estate market in the world. Regardless of the day-to-day ups and downs I was struck by the almost supernatural positivity exhibited by the Serhant and the other top-producing brokers. This mindset has many applications to physical commodity trading.

1. You must believe something is possible, even if nobody else does. This is particularly true for new products, novel positions or being very early to a trade. The very best trades are often not obvious, but if the trader believes they have correctly identified an exceptional opportunity they must have the courage of their convictions to commit to a potentially meaningful exposure.

2. Never give up. You must exhaust all possibilities, not one or some or a few. All the possibilities. It is very easy to give up, taking comfort in the fact that you tried. But did you really try everything? Every counterparty? Every shipping modality? Every deal or financing structure? Probably not. The person who refuses to take no for an answer usually doesn’t have to.

3. You may have to do something almost impossible. I once worked with a trader who was always a net seller of a physical product but, due to a combination of improbable circumstances, ended up short and had to be a massive buyer every day for a month. Incredibly difficult to manage without the market finding out and extracting significant pain. I sat across from that trader and every day for a month watched him finesse the volume he needed out of the market one deal at a time. At no point did his attitude waver from a resolute acceptance of the task and an intense focus on getting the job done. And they did, in one of the most impressive feats of transactional skill I’ve ever witnessed.

Don’t confuse positivity with emotional state. It is possible to aggressively pursue your goals on days when you are not at your best physically or emotionally. You will certainly have to, at some point. Legendary fighter Ronda Rousey once said that she trained to be able to beat her opponent on her worst day, not her best day.

As the saying goes: You think you can or you think you can’t, either way you are right.

Think you can.