When Trading Becomes the Only Measure: The Identity Trap No One Talks About

When Trading Becomes the Only Measure: The Identity Trap No One Talks About

At what point does trading stop being something you do... and start becoming who you are?

It’s a line that’s easy to cross, often without noticing. At first, it’s harmless. You get good at something, you see results and then naturally start thinking, this is me!

An amalgamation of different functions: the researcher, the designer, the system builder, the investor, the trader, the operator… the person who can ‘read’ the market and respond when others panic.

Over time however, the role of being a trader becomes something more... It stops being 'a thing that you do', and becomes an identity. One that you sport proudly. One that others now attach to you as well.  You now have something to live up to. A standard of sorts. This is where things start to get tricky. You have standards to uphold and a personal benchmark to be measured against.

When your self-worth becomes tied to the markets, to the P&L, to the ability to 'perform' any period of drawdown, hesitation or even just a flat patch doesn't just impact your account, it has the potential to shake you and mess with the core of who you think you are.

This is especially the case the longer you’ve been at it. How do I know this so intimately?  I’ve been there and I have the T-shirt!

This error of attaching one's identity to being a trader is when traders fall into the trap that I see so often. They double down. They overtrade. They push harder. Not just to get back to profit but to get back to feeling like themselves again. Even when things have been going well, when personal targets have been reached there is a thread that keeps many traders connected to the pulse of the market.

In the book The Trading Game by Gary Stevenson, there’s a section (in Part 5 'Thermostat', Chapter 8) where Gary’s mentor and manager returns to work after having already retired.  The unsaid question in everyone’s mind was… why has he returned? Gary managed to get a quiet moment to speak to his old boss and find out the answer for himself... Below is the excerpt from the book (italics and emphasis are mine).

“Tell me, what was life in California really like?' And it was just the two of us for a moment, and he told me, It was beautiful, Gary. We had this huge, beautiful house, the front all held up by huge columns. We had the thing specially made, out in the countryside. And from the inside it opened up, outwards, into this huge, beautiful garden that spread for miles out the back, far deep into these huge trees.

You don't get trees like that over here. And the kids would play together in the garden all day out into the late evening and Florence would cook dinner for the four of us and I'd go out there and I'd call them in. It was beautiful, warm all year round.'

There was a pause, and, for an instant, he faltered. And I met those huge eyes and that huge smile, and I caught them and held them and I didn't back down. But there was a problem. The guys who built the house, you know ... I'm not sure they were the best guys. They were friends of my wife's family, you know? There were a few little things... With the design... Of that place... I'm not sure, you know? I think they weren't great.?

Another pause, and he looked away, and I pressed him for more.

Like what Caleb? What do you mean?'

Well, I mean, for example... The thermostat. They put the thermostat too close to the fire. When you put the fire on, in winter, the thermostat would trip. And the heating would go off upstairs, and it would get cold.' Keep the eyes. Don't let them evade you.

We got them to come back. And to move the thermostat.

But the problem, it kept coming back. No matter where we put the thermostat, we couldn't get it right.' Caleb kept talking then, but I wasn't listening. All I saw then was a vision. A huge, beautiful house, a huge, beautiful kitchen. Opening out to a beautiful garden. Two beautiful, blonde-headed boys, full of life, play around as the golden sun sets over them, casting them into the shadows of huge, alien trees. The beautiful mother heads into the garden.

'Timothy! Jacob! Dinner's ready! Come on in!' And there, adjacent to the huge room of the kitchen, a huge dining table, and beyond it, a huge living room.

And in the centre of that living room, beneath a shimmering chandelier, a huge luxury armchair, and in it a huge, wealthy, large-headed man. And his eyes fix on something small, there, on the wall. Above the fireplace, up, to the left. He watches and he watches and he watches, like a wolf. Then one fat finger twitches, on the arm of the chair. The thermostat.

And I knew then why Caleb came back to the trading floor.

He came because he had to be here.”

When your entire sense of value comes from trading well and when others see you as a trader… its not inconceivable that you’ll do anything to avoid the discomfort of not engaging with the market.  It becomes an insatiable need to remain consistent and congruent of the image we have of ourselves. As humans, we will do whatever we can to remain consistent with our identity.

How easy is it then to forget why we started with all of this in the first place?

With trading and investing, for each of our positions, many of us have the mantra, 'know your exit'. How do we then forget the greater context of our involvement in the market in general. What is your why? What is your number? When do you determine that enough is enough?

Being a trader can become all consuming. It’s easy to forget there’s more to you than the trades you take. It’s easy to forget that you are not your last win or loss. This is especially the case where the only metric that seems to count is your P&L (both at work and at home).

The human cost of that narrow lens is high. I’ve seen traders lose relationships, health, joy, peace of mind and perspective all because they couldn’t separate the person from the performer.

This isn’t necessarily about trading less or loving the game any less. It’s about remembering that you are more than your trading outcomes. That your worth as a human isn’t on the line every time you hit 'buy' or 'sell' or the outcome that flows from those transactions.

Building your identity solely on being 'a trader' is like balancing your life on a one-legged table. It might stand tall for a while, but any wobble, any loss feels destabilising, leaving you scrambling to keep it upright.

When you reclaim parts of yourself outside of trading, the market stops feeling like a personal referendum on your worth. It becomes what it always was:

A place to engage with risk. To test ideas. To make decisions. But not the only mirror you look into.

So, I leave you with what I hope is a useful question for each of us to ponder on:

Who am I when I’m not trading?