As an equities trader, I routinely see tempers flare on the trading floor.
People swear and yell out loud, they bang on the desk, they throw down the mouse or they pound on the keyboard.
I've seen this occur many times and what usually happens is that the trader eventually blows up.
What does it mean when a trader "blows up"?
When a trader blows up, it means that the trader is no longer thinking logically and is prone to making bad, snap decisions. As the trader gets angrier and angrier, his (or her) trading gets worse and worse and the losses from each trade gets bigger and bigger.
In the trading world, we call this revenge trading - a trade made out of anger with the intention of extracting revenge to try to make your money back and to punish the market or the stock for making you lose money.
As you can probably tell, in the trading world, revenge trades are a no no.
It pretty much is the same way in life.
If something sets you off on a tantrum, you will also tend to do things that you wouldn't normally do or say and in the process, you can potentially harm or even destroy a relationship or hurt someone close to you.
A good example is when you and your significant other gets into an argument. As the argument proceeds, sometimes we get angrier and angrier until it gets to the point where you say things to intentionally hurt each other.
Or it could be that you got cut off in traffic and you get upset about it and you start driving like a maniac. Perhaps you try to chase after the car that cut you off or you blare your horn continuously for several minutes.
Essentially, you blow up just like a trader. And just like a trader, you try to somehow extract revenge for whatever it was that was done to you, potentially making the situation even worse.
The best way for a trader to handle it would be to take a break, go out for a walk and simply step away from the trading workstation for a while. This allows the trader to come back to their senses and to cool their jets.
I would recommend the same thing in life. If you're in an argument, take a little break, go out for a walk and let your emotions settle. The last thing you want to do is to say something out of anger that you will later regret.
I will be the first to admit that I didn't always cool my jets when an argument ensued with my wife. Things were said that I wish never came out.
But now I've taken what I've learned from the trading floor and applied it to life.
If my wife and I ever get into a dispute and I feel that tensions and tempers are starting to rise, I'll usually go out to take a walk - a sort of "time out" for at least a half an hour.
Once I come back, I will feel as though I can discuss things in a rational manner and we usually resolve our conflicts productively and quickly.
I cannot tell you what a world of difference this makes in our relationship.
In the past, an argument would last for hours and hours because things were said in the heat of the moment that brought on even more arguing. The one thing we were arguing about eventually snowballed into 4 or 5 different things because of the "revenge" we were trying to extract on each other.
Today, if we get into an argument, they are resolved peacefully and rationally in a matter of minutes (not including our "time out" time). Once our emotions dissipate, we can then work on our disputes without adding fuel to the fire.
So next time you feel tempers starting to flare, just remember: don't blow yourself up.
