Who taught you how to write? - A free-write

Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would enjoy writing as much as I do now. When I was a kid I hated writing. I hated reading. I hated studying and school in general. I loved math though. While I was still in India, my grandfather worked with me on math every day after school. He was an angry guy. He used to throw the notebook every time I got a problem wrong. That probably caused some trauma that still affects me to this day but it made me very good at math. Then I moved to America and school was much easier here. I was the best student in my classes and I didn't have to try. I coasted pretty much till high school where everything got more difficult. By that time I genuinely did not want to study. I guess most kids don't. However, every slacker has to pick up the slack once in a while. There were semesters where I had to bust my ass to pick up my grades. So I had to try.

I think it was my junior year when I stepped into the English class that changed my life. What is ironic is that I cannot remember the teacher's name. He was an older guy, bald, and had a very deep voice. I had to ace his class. I think that semester he had us write 8 papers. On the first few I did not do well. So I went to him and asked what I could do to improve. Ultimately this has always been the difference between me doing well at something and me underachieving. Anytime I was willing to ask for help to ensure my performance improved, it always did. Ultimately, that is how you learn. That is all learning is. This teacher was the guy who taught me how to formulate a thesis and write about it. How to structure an essay, how to get my point across, and how to conclude. Me and my shitty grades were the drivers of my growth. I had to get good grades and the only way to do that was to write however this guy wanted me to. But before this class, I had never gotten higher than an 80 in any English class. In this class, I got a 93. It was the first time in my life that I felt that I could write if I put my mind to it. That was powerful.

The next teacher that helped me is another one I can't remember the name of. I am horrible with names. This time I was in college and the class was Religion 101. My circumstances were similar. I had to pull my GPA up to strengthen my application for business school. For the class, we had to write 5 essays. The final one was an 8-page paper. 8 pages! How does anyone write that fucking much about anything? Just like in high school, I did poorly on the first paper. Just like in high school I went to the professor after class and asked what I could do to improve. I have never kissed any teacher's ass more than I did that teacher. I spent a lot of time in her office asking questions and hearing her out. She was not the nicest person or the best teacher. But I have to hand it to her, she taught me how to write. If I had to pick the one person who most taught me how to write, I would pick her. Up until that point, I could write 500 words but I could not prove a clear point. She taught me how to do that. The key to writing any good paper in college is this. You start with a solid thesis. Then you give your first piece of evidence and talk about it. Then your second. Then your third. Then your fourth. You get the gist. If the paper is long then you have to throw some counterarguments in there and then show why they are trash. Then you conclude the essay. It became easy to write an 8-page paper. Especially because my "evidence" was often large bulks of text. The larger the better. It took up a lot of space on the page. Writing all those papers for this class actually made me enjoy writing. It was the first time I genuinely enjoyed writing. I got an A in the class.

The next semester I won the award for economics at my junior college. Of all the students that took economics classes, I had the highest grade. For my last economic class, I had to write an essay about a topic of my choosing. I decided to write about the stock market. At the time it was my magnum opus. It was such a beautiful essay. So clear, so concise, with great evidence, and an awesome conclusion. I got a 100 on the paper and an A in the class. Here's the thing, everything I wrote in the paper was straight-up wrong. I fundamentally did not understand how the stock market worked. This is ironic because I have since dedicated my life to understanding that very same market. I thought everything I wrote was 100% correct but I was so wrong it was actually comical. My teacher knew this. And I still got a 100 on the paper.

As you have probably already guessed, I was not much of a reader growing up. But around the age of 24, my profession as a trader made me a voracious reader. I wanted to learn everything I could about the stock market. I read every book on the topic that I could get my hands on. And, trust me, there are a lot of them. Most of the books were nonsense but I didn't know it at the time. A lot of trading is psychology so I started reading psychology books. Books on performance, books on success, books on excellence, etc. I read all the self-help non-fiction books. They all taught me something. But after a while, I started to develop my own framework for learning and improving at my job. To get better at anything, you don't just have to do it, you also have to reflect. Pretty early on in my trading career, I discovered the importance of journaling. It is vital for improvement. So this was the majority of my writing at the time.

But then something else happened. Every time I had a hard day it became quite therapeutic for me to write about it. I started to free-write almost every day. Oh my gosh! I almost forgot. Where did I learn to free-write? In 7th grade. I had a teacher who at the beginning of some of our classes would prompt us to just start writing. The only rule was that you had to keep writing nonstop for 15 minutes. Whatever you are thinking about, write it down. It was a fantastic exercise. I remember very little from middle school, but I remember that. That has always stuck with me.

So when I would have a rough day I would come home and write about it. I would write down all of it. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Things that I would never be able to say to other people. Things you are not supposed to say out loud. I wrote them all down. It became therapy for me. Self-therapy. There were times when I would free-write first thing every morning. Then there were times when I would free-write right before bed. Or right after work. I did this every day. Consistency became the name of my game.

When you do something every day for years, you become really fucking good at it. I became good at getting my thoughts on paper. Now, you the reader might disagree and that is fine. But I believe that I can write in my voice. And that is a powerful thing. It is as potent as a drug. Imagine writing something and while you are writing it you know that you are killing it. Every word is perfect. Whatever you are saying doesn't even matter because the way you are saying it and the speed at which you can get your thoughts on paper is magnificent. It is a euphoric feeling. That feeling is the basis for my writing, it is why I started this blog.

For the longest time, I never wanted to write something for the public eye. I thought it would devalue the art. Not to mention that I never thought I was good enough. Well, that's not entirely true. I definitely thought I was good enough at times. I was on a plane to India when the thought appeared in my head to start a blog. The question that I was pondering was this: what is a skill that I have not taken to its fullest potential? The answer was my writing. I have now been writing for myself for almost a decade. I know that because I have been journaling about my work since I started trading 10 years ago. The two have grown side by side. I am as experienced in writing as I am in trading. The number of reps is similar. That is a tremendous asset. Now my writing is in the public eye and we will see what happens. Maybe the blog will go on to do great things. Maybe my stories will be made into short films that I can post on Youtube. Maybe. Maybe I will do it for a year and nothing will come of it. Maybe my writing does indeed suck. That's the thing, you never know until you try. So this is me trying.