My guest today is Nelson Dellis. He is a memory athlete and consultant. Nelson is a six-time USA Memory Champion, holding the record for most wins of the national memory champion title. Nelson also runs Climb 4 Memory, a nonprofit which aims to raise funds and awareness for Alzheimer’s disease research through mountain climbs around the world.
The topic is his book Everyday Genius: Hacks to Boost Your Memory, Focus, Problem-Solving, and Much More.
In this episode of Trend Following Radio we discuss:
Memory techniques as systems and frameworks
Pygmalion effect and belief shaping performance
Memory as foundation for faster learning and creativity
Training the brain like a muscle and preventing cognitive decline
Name memorization using visualization and association
I recently purchased Trend Following Masters Volume 1 and Volume 2, and I truly enjoy your insights and perspective on trend following.
I noticed the message in the book about receiving the free interactive Trend Following presentation. I would be very grateful if you could share it with me. If needed, I would be happy to send you a photo of my purchase receipt as proof.
Thank you very much for your time and for writing such valuable books.
Thanks a ton for your constant motivation and guidance, man. Your words and trading wisdom keep me grounded and hungry for more.
I’m putting in the work every single day and I promise you this: I will be a millionaire trader by 2030. And when that happens, I’m coming to meet you in person to express my gratitude and have coffee with you.
Until then, I’ll keep hustling and staying disciplined.
Just wanted to send this message to you and to thank you for the passionate amazing work that you’ve have done over the years with your books and your informative and decisive podcasts. You continue to drive home with incredible inspiration and passion what trend following is all about. Your podcasts get better all the time!! Please continue to drive home you’re knowledge and message with the same intensity as you’ve always done. Those that choose to listen will benefit in a big way and profit without a doubt, those that don’t will continue to live in their mommy’s basement in their tighty whities lol.
Again a BIG SHOUT OUT to you for the incredible work over the years. Please keep it going!!!
Precision is for surgeons. In the markets, and in life, precision is a trap.
Most people are paralyzed by the fear of being wrong. They want to be perfect before they start. They think a “good” record means a high success rate. They want the safety of the majority.
That mindset is a death sentence for your capital.
If you are obsessed with your “win rate,” you are playing a game of ego. You aren’t playing the game of math.
The Math of Greatness
Greatness is a numbers game. It is a brutal, high-volume, low-accuracy grind. The legends don’t win because they have a secret map to the truth. They win because they fail more than you do.
The data is clear:
Frank Sinatra: 1,200 songs recorded. Only 209 hits. That is a 17% success rate.
Babe Ruth: 8,399 attempts. Only 714 home runs. That is 8.5%.
Pablo Picasso: 150,000 pieces of work. Only 1,170 hits. That is a staggering 0.7%.
If Picasso were a modern fund manager, he would be fired in a month. A 0.7% “hit rate” looks like a disaster on a spreadsheet.
But Picasso didn’t care about the 148,830 pieces that didn’t change the world. He cared about the outliers. He understood that the math of greatness is skewed. You have to produce the junk to get to the genius.
The Accuracy Obsession
Most investors are trapped by the “Batting Average” fallacy. They want to be right 80% of the time. They look for the “sure thing.”
They think five losses in a row means the system is broken.
It isn’t.
If you are right 90% of the time but your 10% of losses wipe out your gains, you are a failure. If you are right 20% of the time but your winners are 50 times the size of your losses, you are a legend.
The market doesn’t pay you for being right. It pays you for being profitable. Those are two very different things.
The “experts” on TV sell you accuracy. They sell you the lie that they know what happens next. They are playing to your human desire for certainty.
Trend following plays to the math of reality.
Chasing the Outlier
In trend following, we don’t look for the “perfect” setup. We don’t try to guess which stock will be the next Picasso.
We take the signal. We enter.
Most of the time, the trend doesn’t develop. We take a small loss. We exit. We do it again.
We are Sinatra in the studio. Most of the tracks won’t be hits. That is the cost of doing business.
But when the trend catches? When we hit that 0.7% outlier? We don’t take a “quick profit.” We don’t cap our upside because we are afraid to lose what we’ve made.
We let the winner run.
The one massive trend pays for the hundred small cuts. You don’t need a high success rate when you have a massive slugging percentage.
The world rewards volume, not perfection
Those who win simply fail more times than everyone else. They have the discipline to stay in the game when the “hit rate” is low. They have the system to survive the 99% of attempts that don’t go anywhere.
If you are protecting your ego, you aren’t protecting your capital.
The lesson is simple. Stop trying to be right. Start trying to be in the game for the outliers.
The moment you accept that failure is the fuel for greatness, you stop being a victim of the market and start being a master of it.
I have found a secret door to success and I’m sure it’s a secret as so few people do it – hard work under the guidance of a professional (pit tested) trader.
Also, people say that trading is a get rich scheme and I agree, If I can be profitable with 3-4 years study (several thousand hours) I think that’s pretty quick, certainly no longer than any other professional. But I guess I don’t think like 90% of traders.
Your article was interesting. If we ever meet I’ll tell you about the Ponzi scheme that happened in my old career! It was ridiculous.
