My Mind Is Playing Tricks on Me
How the mind whispers confidence when it should be screaming caution
In January 2005, I was in Castleberry, Florida, knocked unconscious on my first run of the day.
I had landed a last-minute spot on the trip after winning a pro contest a month earlier. Another rider broke his leg, and I was called up. Technically, I wasn’t even on the team—a mentor of mine vouched for me. Maybe because I was talented. Maybe because I had punched the team owner at that same contest because he threw my bike down a staircase when I was 14.
Hard to say.
This was one of the biggest trips of my life at that point. A van full of friends, 25 hours on the road from freezing Binghamton to warm Florida. I remember the absurdity of Jeff’s rules: no bathroom breaks unless we stopped for gas, and repeated attempts to convince us to pull over at Risqué Café.
The kind of nonsense that makes road trips memorable.
By the time we arrived at our room, I was exhausted but too excited to sleep. I ended up in the closet of a shared hotel room, eyes open, waiting for morning.
And then we got to the trails. They were beautiful. The kind of place that makes you forget the mileage, the lack of sleep, the nagging stiffness in your legs.
I warmed up on the small pack. Then I hit the big pack.
I don’t remember what happened next.
I came to in the van, alone. No idea how I got there. Just a pounding head and the distant sensation that something wasn’t right. I must have fallen asleep because what followed were dream after dream of dying. They felt real. Too real.
But here’s where it gets weird—later that night, I rode again. Not just rode. I put down some of the best riding that I could do at that time. The only reason I know that is because someone filmed it.
My body was on autopilot, responding to instincts I didn’t know I had.
Looking back, I should have stopped. Taken a break. Listened to what my body was telling me.
But that was never my personality.
And that’s what I want to talk about today—the fine line between pushing past our limits and ignoring them completely.
The human brain is a funny thing. It convinces us to keep going when we should stop. It tells us we’re fine when we’re not.
It plays tricks on us—whether we’re riding trails or trading markets.
Risk isn’t always obvious in the moment. Sometimes it disguises itself as momentum. As progress. As “one more trade” or “one more run.” And when things are going well, the signals that should make us pause—the fatigue, the strain, the small mistakes—get buried under the rush of it all.
But risk doesn’t disappear just because we ignore it.
The question is: Do we recognize the warning signs in time? Or do we wait until we’re unconscious in the van, piecing together what went wrong?
When the Character Changes
"The relative ratio of the World Ex-US index versus the S&P 500 is on the verge of breaking out of a 16-year downtrend."
@granthawkridge (The Daily Number)
Grant’s built something beautiful here. That doesn’t mean it’ll last forever. It doesn’t mean “this time is different.” It just means something’s changed. The character of the trend is shifting.
The RSI on the World ex-US ETF is now more overbought than at any point since the ETF began trading. That’s a signal—not a promise, not a prophecy, but a signal.
Rick (@NullCharts) helped me go further back with a custom all-world ex-US index. It tells the same story. Momentum is real. It’s just not where most people are looking.
People still talk about the S&P 500 like it’s the only scoreboard that matters. And sure—between 2003 and 2007, the S&P rose nearly 93%. That was a bull market. No one questioned it.
The gains felt obvious and earned.
But here’s the thing: I could say over and over that there’s strength in these under-owned countries.
That money is being made in corners most have stopped paying attention to. I could scream it. And still, it wouldn’t matter.
Because the brain plays tricks.
We’re outperforming the market by over 30% right now. But nobody cares. Why? Because people are conditioned to believe the old trades will come back.
That the world will snap back to the familiar. It’s not about data. It’s about comfort.
Narratives are sticky. They’re comforting. And most people would rather be wrong in a crowd than right alone.
That’s the game.
And if you don’t recognize when the character of the trend has changed, the game will play you.
"Generals always prepare to fight the last war, especially if they won it." - Georges Clemenceau
Here are 5 ways that the mind plays tricks on us…
1. Luck Feels Like Skill in the Rearview Mirror
When a risky trade works out, it rarely feels risky in hindsight. We tell ourselves we saw something others didn’t. But often, we were just lucky. The danger is that luck masquerading as skill creates confidence without foundation—and that kind of confidence is expensive over time.
2. Winning Feels Safer Than It Is
After a good run, everything feels easier. We mistake momentum for mastery. The mind starts whispering that the rules don’t apply to us. But risk doesn't vanish just because you've been doing well. If anything, it hides, waiting for your guard to drop.
Don’t confuse brains with a bull market…
3. The Brain Adjusts to Danger Like It's Weather
The first time you take a big risk, your heart races. The tenth time, it doesn’t. Not because the risk is gone—but because the mind adjusts. It normalizes what should still scare you.
We call this experience. Sometimes it’s just numbness.
4. We Forget What Hurts and Remember What Feels Good
Memory isn’t a ledger. It’s a story. And we tend to rewrite the story so we come out looking wise. The painful trades fade. The lucky breaks shine brighter. We don’t mean to lie to ourselves. It just happens—because our egos prefer tidy endings.
Keep a journal, it does not have to be a spreadsheet. Write on paper how you feel each day and why you put on the trade and where you are getting out before you get in.
5. Fear Disguises Itself as Logic
Sometimes you feel it in your gut—don’t do it. Step back. Wait. But instead of listening, we rationalize. We build entire narratives to drown out what might’ve been our best warning system.
The market punishes ego, but it really punishes denial.
When the Wind Shifts
Right now, my attention is on something that hasn’t happened in a long time: a weak dollar cycle.
It’s easy to miss because it unfolds slowly, almost quietly. But when the dollar weakens, it doesn’t just affect currency charts. It changes gravity across the investment world.
It’s lifting the tide for everything I’m long at the moment—commodities, international equities, precious metals. Things most investors forget about until they start working.
This is how we’re positioned in the long-term portfolio. It’s not a prediction. It’s a recognition: sometimes the wind shifts, and if you’re paying attention, you don’t have to paddle so hard.
If you're curious about our futures swing trades or want to see how we manage risk week by week, there's a button below.
This is boosting all of the positions that I’m long at the moment. Commodities, international stocks and of course precious metals.
Here is how I’m positioned in our long term portfolio. If you would like to see our futures swing trading portfolio, individual trades and a weekly transparent portfolio please hit the button below. 👇
In this post you can see how we ended 2024 and the positions we started with. ⬇️
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This is insanely good.