Some days, the market just wins.
And right now? It feels like that’s almost every day.
Yesterday, the NASDAQ and the S&P were down, with the NASDAQ closing in correction territory. The Dow dropped 400 points. Oil is back above $100 a barrel. Bond yields are climbing.
And nobody, not Wall Street, not Washington, not the world’s best analysts, can tell you with any confidence what happens tomorrow.
That’s the market we’re in right now.
The war in Iran has made predicting this thing nearly impossible. One headline hints at a ceasefire, and everything rips higher. The next headline kills that optimism, and we’re right back down.
It’s whipsaw after whipsaw. And if you’re feeling frustrated, you’re paying attention.
I’ve been there more times than I can count. And for a long time, I handled those days the wrong way.
Then everything changed…
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If you don’t know him yet, pay attention. Ben is one of the sharpest options traders I’ve come across. The way he thinks about timing, risk, and execution is next level. A real tactician.
On March 30th and April 1st, Ben is hosting a 2-day Options Bootcamp.
Guys, whether you’re just getting started with options or you’re looking to tighten up your strategy and your mindset, this is exactly the kind of opportunity you don’t sleep on.
Learning from someone who does this at Ben’s level? That’s worth showing up for.
The Five-Mile Fix
Not long ago, I had a red day.
Not a catastrophic one. Just one of those days where nothing clicked, the setups didn’t cooperate, and I ended up on the wrong side of the market.
I closed my laptop, and I went for a walk. Five, maybe six miles.
No podcast. No phone calls. Just me, fresh air, and some time to think.
By the time I got back, something had shifted.
The frustration had moved through me instead of sitting on top of me. I’d processed what happened. I’d already started to figure out what I’d do differently.
And I was actually hungry, which sounds small, but when you’re locked in a losing headspace, you forget to do basic human things.
That walk didn’t fix my P&L for that day…
But it saved my week.
What Happens When You Don’t Reset
Here’s what I know from experience…
When you take a loss, and you don’t process it, like really process it, it follows you.
It shows up the next morning when you’re sizing into a trade. It shows up when you’re a little too eager to make the money back. It shows up when you hold a loser too long because you can’t afford to be wrong again today.
That’s how one bad day turns into a bad week. And a bad week into a bad month.
I’ve lived that. I’ve watched other traders live it too.
The loss itself usually isn’t the problem.
It’s what you do with the emotion attached to it that determines what happens next.
For years, I buried those emotions. Ignored them. Told myself to toughen up and get back to work.
What I didn’t realize was that all that burying had a price. It was piling up beneath the surface, affecting my decisions in ways I couldn’t even see.
The Walk Is the Work
When I go for a walk after a hard day, I’m not escaping the problem.
I’m doing the work.
I’m breathing. I’m getting sunlight. I’m moving my body. I’m letting the frustration run its course instead of bottling it up and sitting back down at the screen with a head full of noise.
There’s something about putting one foot in front of the other that clears the static. Ideas surface. Clarity comes back. The day starts to look like what it actually is, which is one data point, not a verdict.
By the time I’m back home, I’m ready to do what I always do after a rough session. I open my spreadsheet. I log the trades. I figure out what I did well and what I’d do differently. And then I close the laptop and move on.
That last part matters the most. Moving on.
Not letting it be the first thing I think about when I wake up tomorrow.
The Real Edge
I spent years thinking the edge was in the setup. The pattern. The entry and exit.
And yeah, all of that matters. You have to do the work. You have to study. You have to track your trades and understand why you’re winning and losing.
But I’ve seen traders with great setups blow up their accounts because they couldn’t manage what happened between trades.
The psychological space between one trade and the next is where a lot of accounts go to die.
Getting outside is how I protect that space.
It doesn’t have to be five miles. It doesn’t even have to be a walk. Whatever gets you out of your head and back into your body… Do that.
Your account will thank you.
Red days are part of this game. They always will be. The question isn’t whether you’ll have them.
It’s what you do when they show up.
– Jack Kellogg
