@andrewshamlet

September 14, 2017September 14, 2017

Hack Your Flow: Understanding Flow Cycles, with Steven Kotler

Before, we believed Flow was binary, like a light switch. You were either in the zone or you were out of the zone. As it turns out, based on research from Herb Benson, Flow is actually a four part cycle.

Struggle
- This is a loading phase. You are loading, then overloading the brain with information. For a baseball player this is learning to swing a bat at a ball. For a writer planning a new book. This is when you’re doing interviews. This is when you’re reading, it’s when you’re diagramming structure and things like that. It’s very unpleasant as a general rule. So even though flow may be the most desirable and pleasant state on earth, the actual flow cycle itself starts with a very unpleasant state known as struggle.
Release
- This literally means you want to take your mind off the problem. So what happens in flow is we are trading conscious processing which is slow, has very limited RAM for subconscious processing which his extremely fast and is very energy efficient and has pretty much endless RAM. So to do that you have to stop thinking about what you were trying to think about. You take your mind off the problem, you go for long walks, gardening works very well, etc.
Flow
- Heightened awareness. Full engagement in the present moment. Loss of sense of time, loss of sense of ego. Peak experience.
Recovery
- This is really, really, really critical. So you go from this amazing high of flow to a very deep low that shows up in recovery. A lot of this is that all those feel good neurochemicals have drained out of your system.

So…

If you really want to hack flow you need to learn how to struggle better and you need to learn how to recover better. And one of the most important things in recovery is you have to – you need some emotional fortitude, some grit. You have to basically hold on to your emotions, not get stressed out at the fact that you know longer feel like Superman. And the main reason – well two reasons for this is one, if you get too stressed out and feeling low you’re going to start producing cortisol. A little bit is fine, too much of it blocks the accelerated learning that comes with flow. So you will actually get the short term benefit of the flow state itself but you won’t get the long term benefit, the accelerated learning that you get in flow. The other problem is if you have to move from recovery back into struggle and you’re bummed out at no longer being in flow during the recovery phase, it’s very hard to get up for the difficult fight of struggle that follows.

September 10, 2017

The Purpose of Purposelessness

The following excerpt is from Bernard De Koven’s The Well-Played Game.

The Purpose of Purposelessness

We are adults. We lead purposeful lives. We maintain our adulthood through our display of purposefulness. Not through playing with purpose but rather through displaying purpose.

We strive to become important–to do important things with other important adults. When our lives lack purpose there seems to be no reason for our continuing to live. When our purposes have been frustrated, when we are not able to accomplish what we have set forth as our goals, we scream in righteous indignation, in pain.

We seek purpose so strongly that when our purposes are finally, ultimately fufilled–when we even come close enough to see that satisfaction is inevitable–we create, as swiftly as we can, other purposes.

Thus we ask ourselves what is the purpose of this purposeless activity. To what other, nobler end is this well-played game? Do we grow as a result? Do we become better at something else than the game? Do we earn status? Money? Wisdom?

It seems, when we think about it, that for all our striving for purpose, we spend a great deal of time and energy doing and pursuing things without purpose.

There you are, caught in a moment of idleness, walking backward down the street. There you are, looking in store windows, not because you’re interested in buying anything but because you want to be looking in store windows. There you are, kicking stones off the sidewalk. There you are telling jokes. There you are, just playing.

Why? What purpose does it serve? Why is this purposelessness so valuable to you? Why does it feel so good?

You’re being playful. You like being playful. It feels good. As a matter of fact, you’re very playful.

You play whenever you get the chance. You doodle. You listen to music. You twiddle your thumbs. You do nothing. You dream. You play with ideas. You toy with things. You turn everything else off, even the sense of purpose, and you just merely play.

It’s as though you have a switch, somewhere, that lets you shut off the very force that gives you meaning, and you just play, without purpose, without meaning anything.

But why do you turn that switch?

If you could, you would play forever. Why do you turn the switch again? Why do you stop playing?

There are so many purposes, real purposes to attend to, survival, personal survival, survival of your family, of your home, of your country, your world; achieving excellence, achieving the ultimate victory, achieving wisdom, truth, enlightenment, a raise in pay.

In this book we’ve been creating yet other purposes. Our play community is purposeful, intentional. All that we do together is for the sake of something else. We want to play well together. We want to achieve excellence in something that ultimately doesn’t even matter. And yet, when we reach that high together, we discover that we can have no other purpose left to except to stay there forever.

Why? Why do we make it our purpose to be without purpose? Why do we create games that give us purpose only so we can, by playing them well together, be released from all purpose?

It is a balancing act. It is a dialog–a play between. On the one hand there is silliness, on the other seriousness. On this side confusion, on this clarity. Here delight. Here, despair. It is neither work nor play, purpose nor purposelessness that satisfies us. It is the dance between.

The game offers us a purpose. It says: Win. And we study the game, we learn the rules and regulations, the strategies that will help us win. Given the purpose, we seek the means.

Play offers us purposelessness. It says: Play! We can’t even play for the purpose of enjoyment. We can’t even play to have fun. We can have fun, we can enjoy ourselves while we are playing, but that is payoff, it isn’t purpose. Purpose interferes with play. When we play for any purpose, when we detect purpose in someone else’s play or in our own, we lose balance, we become distortions. When we play for praise, for grades, for trades, we find ourselves not really playing.

Odd, isn’t it? Paradoxical. Apparently without solution. Is play the completion of game, or is the game completion of play? Uncomfortable, this consideration. What else can one do at such a time, facing such a profound problem?

September 9, 2017

Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin

This year may be remembered as the year of Cryptocurrencies. While Cryptocurrencies have been around for some time, I would argue it was in 2017 when they reached a ‘tipping point’, becoming something more than a niche, alternative investment.

Where’s the proof? Year to date, Bitcoin has increased 370%, Ethereum has increased 2940%, and Litecoin increased 1650%. Comparatively, the S&P 500 has increased 10%. Produce returns +30X the benchmark and Investors take notice.

So how might you invest in Cryptocurrencies? I recommend using Coinbase and its sister exchange GDAX.

On both sites, you may purchase Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin. Coinbase charges a brokers fee, though locks in the price at the moment of transaction. Using limit orders on GDAX, you can avoid the brokers fee, though you will be subject to the changing market price as the order is filled throughout the day. For individual investors, both Coinbase and GDAX limit the amount you may purchase within a given a week, which could be seen as a drawback.

Curious to learn more, check the videos below.

September 5, 2017

Ideas are like Acorns

Excerpt from David J. Schwartz’s The Magic Power of Thinking Big.

‘Each year an oak tree produces enough acorns to populate a good-sized forest. Yet, from these bushels of seeds perhaps only one or two acorns will become a tree. The squirrels destroy most of them and the hard ground beneath the tree doesn’t give the few remaining seeds much chance for a start.

So it is with ideas. Very few bear fruit. Ideas are highly perishable. If we’re not on guard, the squirrels (negative-thinking-people) will destroy most of them. Ideas require special handling from the time they are born until they’re transformed into practical ways for doing things better. Use these three ways to harness and develop your ideas.

Don’t let ideas escape. Write them down. Every day lots of good ideas are born only to die quickly because they are not nailed to paper. Memory is a weak slave when it comes to preserving and nurturing brand new ideas. Carry a notebook or some small cards with you. When you get an idea, write it down. A friend who travels a lot keeps a clipboard beside him so that he can write down an idea the instant it occurs to him. People with fertile, creative minds know a good idea may sprout any time, any place. Don’t let your ideas escape; else, you destroy the fruits of your thinking. Fence them in.
Next, review your ideas. File these ideas in an active file. The file can be an elaborate cabinet, or it can be a desk drawer. A shoe box will do. Build a file and then examine your storehouse of ideas regularly. As you go over your ideas, some may, for very good reasons, have no value at all. Get rid of them. But so long as the idea has any promise, keep it.
Cultivate and fertilize your idea. Now make your idea grow. Think about it. Tie the idea to related ideas. Read anything you can find which is in any way akin to your idea. Investigate all angles. Then, when the time is ripe, put it to work for yourself, your job, your future.

August 6, 2017August 6, 2017

Finite vs. Infinite Games

In game theory, there are two types of games, finite and infinite.

	Finite Games	Infinite Games
Players	Known	Known and Unknown
Rules	Fixed	Changeable
Objective	Agreed upon	Perpetuate the Game
Example	Baseball	Cold War

When you pit a finite player vs. a finite player, the system is stable.

When you pit an infinite player vs. an infinite player, the system is stable.

In an infinite game, there are no winners and losers. Because there are no winners or losers, the only thing a player can do is drop out, when he or she no longer has resources or the will to play.

Problems arise when you pit a finite player vs. an infinite player. The finite player gets caught in quagmire.

This happens in business all the time.

The game of business is an infinite game. The concept of business has lasted longer than every single business that exists right now.

The funny thing about business is the number of companies that are playing finite games. They are playing to win, to be the best, to beat the quarter, or the year. And they are always frustrated by that company that has an amazing vision. Over the long term, the infinite player will always win…

This is what happened to the United States in Vietnam.

Learn more by listening to the Simon Sinek video below….

August 6, 2017

Python Tutorial – Getting Started

Contact: andrewshamlet@gmail.com // @andrewshamlet

Getting Started

Congratulations, and welcome to Stock Technical Analysis in Python!

You have taken your first step towards making smarter, more disciplined trading decisions.

Before diving in, let’s make sure you have everything you may need.

Anaconda 4.4.0

We recommend downloading Anaconda 4.4.0, with Python 2.7.

– http://www.continuum.io/downloads

Pandas, Numpy, and MatPlotLib

Anaconda comes pre-loaded with the three modules you will use throughout the course.

– http://www.pandas.pydata.org/

– http://www.numpy.org/

– http://www.matplotlib.org/

Quantopian

You will backtest your strategy using the Quantopian platform.-

– http://www.quantopian.com/

StockCharts, Investopedia, and Google Finance

StockCharts, Investopedia, and Google Finance are great resources for financial knowledge.

– http://www.stockcharts.com

– http://www.investopedia.com/

– http://www.google.com/finance

Stack Overflow

Stack Overflow is a great resource for coding questions.-

– http://www.stackoverflow.com/

You are now ready to dive in!

August 6, 2017

Python Tutorial – Future Returns

Download the accompanying IPython Notebook for this Tutorial from Github.

Last Tutorial, we outlined steps for calculating the Stochastic Oscillator.

In this Tutorial, we walk through calculating 5-day, 10-day, and 20-day future returns, from historical data.

Caculating 5-day, 10-day, and 20-day future returns will allow us to identify relationships between current technical indicators and future returns.

Let’s use Python to compute the 5-day, 10-day, and 20-day future returns.

1.) Import modules.

import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
from pandas_datareader import data as web
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
%matplotlib inline

2.) Define function for querying daily close.

def get_stock(stock,start,end):
 return web.DataReader(stock,'google',start,end)['Close']

3.) Define function for calculating the 5-day future return.

def fiveday(close): 
 fiveday = ((close.shift(-5) - close) / close) * 100
 return fiveday

4.) Define function for calculating 10-day future return.

def tenday(close): 
 tenday = ((close.shift(-10) - close) / close) * 100
 return tenday

5.) Define function for calculating 20-day future return.

def twentyday(close): 
 twentyday = ((close.shift(-20) - close) / close) * 100
 return twentyday

6.) Query daily close.

df = pd.DataFrame(get_stock('FB', '1/1/2016', '12/31/2016'))

7.) Run daily close through fiveday, tenday, and twentday functions. Save series to new columns in dataframe.

df['5 day'] = fiveday(df['Close'])
df['10 day'] = tenday(df['Close'])
df['20 day'] = twentyday(df['Close'])
df = df.dropna()
df.tail()

8.) Plot average 5-day, 10-day, and 20-day future returns.

df2 = df[['5 day', '10 day', '20 day']].mean()
df2.plot(kind='bar')

There you have it! We calculated 5-day, 10-day, and 20-day future returns. Here’s the full code:

import pandas as pd
import numpy as np
from pandas_datareader import data as web
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
%matplotlib inline

def get_stock(stock,start,end):
 return web.DataReader(stock,'google',start,end)['Close']

def fiveday(close): 
 fiveday = ((close.shift(-5) - close) / close) * 100
 return fiveday

def tenday(close): 
 tenday = ((close.shift(-10) - close) / close) * 100
 return tenday

def twentyday(close): 
 twentyday = ((close.shift(-20) - close) / close) * 100
 return twentyday

df = pd.DataFrame(get_stock('FB', '1/1/2016', '12/31/2016'))
df['5 day'] = fiveday(df['Close'])
df['10 day'] = tenday(df['Close'])
df['20 day'] = twentyday(df['Close'])
df = df.dropna()
df.tail()

July 31, 2017