Normally I don’t post on the weekend. But this week, I have cause to make an exception. Three separate and distinct happenings; the occurrence of any single one would have made my week. Instead, I was triple blessed; the week turned out to be a humongous occurrence! So what this blog is about is sharing those moments.

• On Wednesday, Nov 10, Colleen Bloom, assessed my stage one competency as a Results Trained Coach. I had taken the 12-week course to sharpen my skills as a mentor/coach to the trading community. I can’t say I wasn’t nervous but Colleen’s openness and honesty made the process easier. In the first part of ‘exam’ I had to help Colleen come to a ’significant and important goal’ that she wanted to attain in the next 3 to 6 months. In the second, I was to help her gain insight to a challenging issue she was facing. This was no make-believe session - this was a real issue.

More than happy to say that I passed. I did better than pass. Colleen told me that she has seldom given a pass mark greater than 70 - I received 75 (!!). More important to me was the fact that she pin-pointed a particular area for improvement.

Much of the credit for the result has to go to the excellent coaching of Maryanne Perry, the head coach and Diana Pettie, assistant coach for the 12-weeks: not only were they great coaches but were also very generous with their time. Credit needs to also go to the other students with whom I did the training sessions and my coachees, especially Nelly Darmali, Wenny Lim and Peter Ow.

I suspect that 1 reason I was so pleased with the result was because it mirrored an essential belief that I have: that I do have above average skills when it comes to helping others. Skills I can use to make a difference.

• Imagine this situation: you are about to give a presentation as the keynote speaker to a packed house of 200 or more participants when you find that your thumb drive damaged and power point files corrupted. As a result, you have only 20-minutes to come up with a presentation that will be entertaining and informative.

That’s the situation that faced me yesterday.  I was facing a packed house for the talk: “Beyond Stocks” and no presentation files! How did the audience receive the impromptu content? Well one participant said after the talk: “That was the best presentation I have been to!”

Maybe I should speak without slides from now on (G).

• The best till last. My trading has been going well this year. When I achieved better than target by end March. I took some time off. On returning I fully expected the results to return to mean expectancy. But they haven’t. In fact, I am taking a short break this coming week, because in our Day-Trading Club, I hit an all time high with 24 consecutive winners. When I start thinking: “God I am good!” - that’s the time to take a break and come back to earth - come back to earth before the market serves me…….my head for breakfast.

So there you have it. Three momentous events in one week. This coming week I am taking Monday to Thursday off: catching with friends at lunches and dinners, movies and so on. Time to celebrate.

Refer this blog post to a friend or colleague…