Power Of Presence

We spend much of our lives asking:

What is worth my time?

Is it being with your loved ones?

Is it working on your dreams?

Is it enjoying solitude?

But in reality there’s no such thing as “wasted time” if you are fully present. The only time you truly waste is when you’re not there, when your body is in one place but your mind is somewhere else.

Think about those moments: when you’re with family but scrolling on your phone, when you’re working on trading, but wishing you were already a millionaire, when you’re sitting in silence but your head is racing toward the future. That’s the real waste - projecting yourself into another moment instead of living the one in front of you.

Traders often fall into this trap. They obsess over their “future trader self” - the version who never loses, who’s financially free, who lives without stress. But if you only focus on that ideal, you dismiss the trader you already are and the progress you’ve made. Every step you’ve taken, every loss you’ve endured, every night you stayed up studying charts - that dedication shaped who you are today. Ignoring that is like ignoring the very foundation you’re standing on.

The more you learn to acknowledge your current self, the more successful you will feel right now. And that feeling fuels confidence, discipline and resilience - the very traits that make you more likely to succeed in the future. It becomes a loop: presence creates awareness, awareness creates progress- and progress builds more presence.

Interestingly, psychology supports this idea. Research on mindfulness - particularly studies by Dr. Ellen Langer at Harvard - shows that being present increases performance, reduces stress and improves decision-making. Another famous study by Killingsworth & Gilbert (2010, Science) found that people spend nearly 47% of their waking hours thinking about something other than what they’re doing - and that this “mind-wandering” strongly predicts unhappiness. In other words, the less present you are, the worse you feel.

So if you want to feel successful as a trader and as a person, stop obsessing over the future. Instead, recognize the path you’ve already walked, the work you’ve already done and the discipline you’ve already built.

The loop is simple: presence → awareness → growth → success.

- Luke FT.