Somewhere in Italy, an ibex with its young, stands at the bottom of a steep wall and looks up. She sees what she wants.
She starts a slow climb up that wall. With just small crevices and delicate footholds, the wall is formidable, even for an ibex. The young is still learning the trick. It will go wherever its mother goes.
The pair scales that wall slowly and reach their destination: a patch of salt, exposed through erosion and water action. Yes, water action because the wall is that of a dam that is holding up water on the other side. Did I say it is steep? Why this apparent insanity? The salt and minerals found in that patch are essential nutrients for the ibex’s survival.
You can view the 4-minute BBC clip that provides a breathtaking account of this excursion.
One word describes the trait that the ibex exhibits: Undaunted.
Undaunted, but not foolish. The same clip shows that several ibexes are at this endeavor as that wall offers salt likely in several patches. Hooves do lose their grips at times; calamity doesn’t ensue because the failure of one hoof is compensated by the firm hold of another.
What make it work for the ibex are the singular goal that propels the goat, reliable tools in the form of hooves that grip the scant footholds, a fail-safe operation in having four hooves at work, and the confidence in its own abilities, thereby being undaunted.
We can emulate the same conditions in our lives. I, for one, am applying the parallels to my quest in understanding swing trading of stocks as a personal finance venture.
With a possibly insane profitability that provides the propulsion, the ascent to it is formidable on the first look. Check my article, “Why Trading is a Zero-sum Game and Why it Still Attracts So Many Players” to see why it is daunting.
In future posts, we will explore ways we can become ibex-like: undaunted.
P. Venkat Raman
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