I have seen the enemy and he is us

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Successful trading and investing have never been easy. Only very few can successfully encounter and navigate the turbulent waters of financial markets and remain standing nearly four decades later.

One of those who have managed this is Jonathan Baird, who in his long career (managing primarily international/global equity mutual funds) has managed three different number 1 ranked funds and has won a prestigious award for the best global equity fund in Canada.   

Jonathan subscribes to the view that whilst the challenge is the market, the real enemy that we face is ourselves. This underlines his work, with a strong focus on being self-aware, challenging himself, managing himself, ensuring he aligns his work, his purpose and his personality in a way which is the most productive and effective for himself. 

This is the drumbeat which we at AlphaMind bang loudly and firmly to traders, work on yourself, not purely on the technical aspects of markets or your system. Work on understanding your process and how you come to make decisions, choices, and actions. We believe that trying to solve the puzzle of the markets and where markets go is half the battle, and possibly the easier half. Trying to solve the puzzle of yourself and how you encounter markets, risk, uncertainty, how you take and manage risk, and how you deploy both your physical capital and your psychological capital. How you remain above the fray is vital, and that requires learning about yourself at a deep and conscious level. In this podcast interview, Jonathan talks about his personal journey and the challenges he faced and had to overcome.

Jonathan also believes that a high-quality source of independent analysis and opinion can make the process more efficient and lead to better-informed decisions. This has led Jonathan to start and distribute his own outstanding monthly newsletter, the Global Investment Letter, in which he provides outstanding and thought-provoking insights and analysis, and which is read by thousands of professional investors and money managers.