During yesterday evening’s match against Wallasey I unveiled a new secret weapon, some Peltor ear defenders. Naturally this caused some amusement (mainly amongst my own team) but I had my reasons. The Widnes venue features a very loud fan heater which is just over my board. I lost two games at home last season, but rather than make excuses it’s better just to do something about it.

Getting rid of excuses is, I believe, a healthy practice. Excuses paint you into a corner of inactivity whereby everything has a drawback. So it’s better to identify any problems and do something about them, even if this risks ridicule by being out of step. By the way, I’ve found that ear defenders are great at children’s parties too, though here it may be better still to have noise cancelling headphones and some relaxing music. It’s little wonder that most parents seem to be stressed a lot of the time; noise is known to be a factor, as is a lack of sleep!

Does this mean I’m equipped to hit the tournament circuit again? Certainly not for the next decade or so, and even then it’s more likely to be holiday tournaments in Spain or Italy. Instead I’m looking into reviving my trading career.

There were a number of things that caused me to stop last year, not least of which was the pressure of making junior’s rice pudding or picking him up from school whilst my positions were fluctuating wildly. But the last few months have shown investing is not an entirely stress free activity either, and I ended up trading my investments, despite the transaction costs involved. It has helped me escape the worst, but then the thought did occur to me that I should have been trading instead of investing in the first place.

Trading seriously means a big change in lifestyle, essentially it’s a 24 hour a day activity. Even if someone is flat they’ll still be thinking about markets on some level. Not to do so means getting out of touch.

What is required is an edge, a plan and lots of failsafes. A stats based approach supplies an edge, though it needs good data and a lot of study. I figure I can get round the school runs with a Blackberry which has a live feed and trading platform, and probably I should be looking to place orders at times that I’m not on rice pudding duty. And the ear defenders should come in handy too, I live on a busy street.