There is a book titled “Bird Watching In Lion Country” by Dirk du Toit which is an excellent starter for anyone who wants to explore the world of currency trading.
Most people are bird watchers. We look for opportunities that allow us to make an honest buck while risking as little as possible.
We want stable jobs, we want sure deals, we want to be on the inside loop, we want to be in the know. We want to sit on our patios and watch the birds. We want to make money and reach “our dreams” by waiting for them to land in our hands.
A rare few don’t look for birds, they are after the lions that put the birds to flight. The lions are those that we read about with awe and envy. The lions are the ones that have bird watchers for breakfast and forget about them before elevenses. The lions are the ones on top of the food chain.
Bird watchers have another habit, they read voraciously about the lions, but still remain happy bird watching. When presented with an opportunity to move with the lions, the bird watchers suddenly realise that the map they are holding says
Here Be Dragons
and run screaming, wide eyed with arms flapping in the air (like the kid from home alone) and hide under their beds refusing to come out even for jelly filled doughnuts.
This is something that perplexes me to no end, why do people talk about chasing their dreams and moonshots and whatnot but do not know the first thing about the relationship between risk and reward. Risk and reward go hand in hand, and as long as risk makes you hide under the bed, the rewards you win are little more than cardboard cutouts of crows taking a crap ( forgive the alliteration).
You control risk by first putting a limit to the downside. If the opportunity cost is xxx dollars, decide if you are willing to lose that in return for what can be made.
Look for extraordinary ideas, people and opportunities. Look for what the lion hunters and the lions are doing and not what binoculars the bird watchers are using.
I have realised that I am surrounded by bird watchers, and all I feel for them is pity. Small dreams make for small lives, and that they see themselves as “successful” makes it all the more sad.
ON THE THREE METAMORPHOSES OF THE SPIRIT
Of the three metamorphoses of the spirit I tell you: how the spirit becomes a camel; and the camel, a lion; and the lion, finally, a child.
There is much that is difficult for the spirit, the strong, reverent spirit that would bear much: but the difficult and the most difficult are what its strength demands.
What is difficult? asks the spirit that would bear much, and kneels down like a camel wanting to be well loaded. What is most difficult, O heroes, asks the spirit that would bear much, that I may take it upon myself and exult in my strength? Is it not humbling oneself to wound one’s haughtiness? Letting one’s folly shine to mock one’s wisdom?…
Or is it this: stepping into filthy waters when they are the waters of truth, and not repulsing cold frogs and hot toads?
Or is it this: loving those that despise us and offering a hand to the ghost that would frighten us?
All these most difficult things the spirit that would bear much takes upon itself: like the camel that, burdened, speeds into the desert, thus the spirit speeds into its desert.
In the loneliest desert, however, the second metamorphosis occurs: here the spirit becomes a lion who would conquer his freedom and be master in his own desert. Here he seeks out his last master: he wants to fight him and his last god; for ultimate victory he wants to fight with the great dragon.
Who is the great dragon whom the spirit will no longer call lord and god? “Thou shalt” is the name of the great dragon. But the spirit of the lion says, “I will.” “Thou shalt” lies in his way, sparkling like gold, an animal covered with scales; and on every scale shines a golden “thou shalt.”
Values, thousands of years old, shine on these scales; and thus speaks the mightiest of all dragons: “All value has long been created, and I am all created value. Verily, there shall be no more ‘I will.’” Thus speaks the dragon.
My brothers, why is there a need in the spirit for the lion? Why is not the beast of burden, which renounces and is reverent, enough?
To create new values — that even the lion cannot do; but the creation of freedom for oneself and a sacred “No” even to duty — for that, my brothers, the lion is needed. To assume the right to new values — that is the most terrifying assumption for a reverent spirit that would bear much. Verily, to him it is preying, and a matter for a beast of prey. He once loved “thou shalt” as most sacred: now he must find illusion and caprice even in the most sacred, that freedom from his love may become his prey: the lion is needed for such prey.
But say, my brothers, what can the child do that even the lion could not do? Why must the preying lion still become a child? The child is innocence and forgetting, a new beginning, a game, a self-propelled wheel, a first movement, a sacred “Yes.” For the game of creation, my brothers, a sacred “Yes” is needed: the spirit now wills his own will, and he who had been lost to the world now conquers the world.
from Nietzsche’s Thus spoke Zarathustra, part I, Walter Kaufmann transl.
