Social norms are the unwritten rules of behavior or beliefs that are considered acceptable in our society. Norms function to provide order and predictability in most settings. As a whole, people want approval, they want to belong, and those who do not follow the norms tend to suffer disapproval or may even be outcast from the group.
Typically social norms such as helping an old lady carry her groceries, picking up the tab when you take a woman on a date, or even paying for insurance are all common social norms. However for trading and investing, most of the social norms that are passed down to the uneducated are the worst norms one could think of, here are a few:
Small amount of money, need to buy cheap stocks - WRONG
Need to lose money to learn - WRONG
Can’t beat the market - WRONG
Now where did these social norms come from? Uneducated people losing- and losers love company. After a buddy explains how he got smoked in his investment, the next friend opens up about his, and it goes on and on until it becomes the norm. As you watch and hear others lose, most rationalize and subconsciously prime themselves to lose.
We have no time for that loser shit, straight up. Our goal is to break those shitty norms immediately. How do you hammer down that all of that shit is dead wrong?
Social proof. Now granted, you might (or may not) think we are smart, however were not the brightest light bulbs in the department store. I graduated from a decent school and Ben G probably shouldn't have even have graduated. Can you even graduate with a 2.4GPA? I’m saying this because we too, bought into those dumb ass norms when we started out as traders, however as our group has grown, the social proof started to grow and made it easier to show the up and coming trader that they don't have to become a victim to Mr Market. Here was a recent exchange between two members in our Getting Started Chat:
As you can see MC9 (Kriss) shows a screenshot in our Getting Started chat to show the members what he has made in the last month as a result of being apart of the Alpha Chat. What follows is the social proof that has helped us break the social norms new traders get suckered into.
Don goes on to show his performance and state that he needs to aim for higher goals. Ding, ding, motherfucking ding!
That was the light bulb, Kriss was up huge, and as a result Don is not going to rest on his laurels, he's going to get back to work and aim for higher goals.
In the 2+ years we have been running our Alpha chat, we have also seen this first hand. Two years ago if the group as a whole (excluding mine and Ben G PnL) were up $1,000 on the week, it would have been a great week. Fast forward to 2018 and the Alpha Chat has been putting up over $150,000+ in profits weekly as a group of less than 150 traders (146 of them are not full time traders by the way).
As time has progressed, our groups have continued to improve daily and set more ambitious goals. Resulting in positive social norms that most would not have believed until they would see it.
"In my whole life, I have known no wise people who didn't read all the time —none, zero."
Charlie Munger
So I want you to forget all those bullshit social norms, continue to improve daily, continue to read daily, and set ridiculous goals because market norms are for suckers. With consistent hard work you can exceed the market’s returns, forget about simply beating it.
