Surgical Salad and Your Trading

“It’s like you’re performing surgery.”

That was my mom’s reaction while watching me make my husband’s lunch salad one day.

Now, this isn’t just any salad. It’s a salad I’ve made almost every day for the past eight months or so since my husband decided to make some dietary changes and bring more vegetables into his routine.

My mom was fascinated watching me work. Part of it was my setup. Part of it was the fact that I wear gloves, which she finds absolutely ridiculous and loves teasing me about.

But as I was making the salad, I realized there were actually quite a few similarities between that process and your trading.

Store Your Resources Efficiently

The first thing that makes the whole process work is how everything is stored.

I have three containers that I pull out every morning. One is store-bought pre-washed baby spinach. The other two are containers I’ve organized myself. One holds vegetables that haven’t been washed yet, like broccoli and cauliflower. The other holds ones that have already been washed and partially used, like bell peppers or large carrots.

Every day I pull those same containers from the same fridge shelves. I put them on the kitchen island and I already know where my cutting board, knife, and other tools are.

The entire setup takes maybe thirty seconds.

When everything has a home, you spend less time searching and more time doing.

Think about your trading.

Do you have things scattered all over the place? Is your laptop charger in one room, your computer in another, your trading plan somewhere else, and your notes journal buried in a folder you can never find?

If that’s happening, you might benefit from bringing things together so your trading materials are easy to access without having to think about them.

Reduce Process Friction

The next phase is preparing the vegetables.

Some need to be washed. Others are already ready to use. Since I’m making a salad for one person every day, I’m usually working with a combination of both.

To save time, I wash the vegetables I’ll need that day and let them drain in a colander. While they’re draining, I start building the salad with the spinach and the vegetables that are already ready to go.

Nothing complicated. Just looking for little ways to keep the process moving.

Small sources of friction add up faster than most people realize.

Trading is the same way.

There may be parts of your routine that slow you down or make things more difficult than they need to be. You may not even notice them at first.

If you spend a few days observing your process or journaling what happens before and during your trading sessions, you’ll probably start to notice if there are any areas of friction.

For me, one of those areas used to be everything I did outside my office before trading.

Getting water. Using the restroom. Taking care of little household tasks.

Now I handle all of that first. Then I close my office door and everything related to futures trading happens inside that room until I’m done .

You may find completely different friction points in your own routine.

Execute in the Same Order

Once the vegetables are ready, it’s time to assemble the salad.

Trading has a similar phase.

You’ve done your analysis. You’ve marked up your charts. You’ve identified the areas that matter. Now the market is open and it’s time to execute.

When I make the salad, I cut the vegetables in the same order every single day. The pre-washed vegetables first. The freshly washed vegetables are second.

After doing it for months, I don’t have to spend energy deciding what comes next.

That creates systems of efficiency and that’s how your trading should feel: Less thinking, more execution. 

You want to spend your energy evaluating opportunities, not constantly reinventing your process.

Protect Yourself

Now let’s talk about the gloves.

My mom thinks they’re hilarious.

She’s a traditional Indian cook, so watching me put on food prep gloves to make a salad seems completely unnecessary to her.

Meanwhile, I paid good money for my manicures and want to protect my nails. 😂

Also, I live in Austin where the climate is dry. I’m constantly moisturizing my hands. Repeatedly washing vegetables and getting my hands wet over and over was rough on my skin, so I started wearing gloves a few months ago.

They’ve helped quite a bit.

Every process benefits from having some form of protection built into it.

For me, it’s gloves.

For your trading, it might be a maximum loss per trade. It might be a daily loss limit. It might be a rule that tells you when you’re done trading for the day.

The specifics don’t matter as much as having those protections established before you need them.

Get Back to Life

At the end of the day, I want the salad to turn out well.

My husband is my person and I want to take care of him best I can.

At the same time, I don’t want to spend half an hour every morning making his lunch.

Over time, I’ve created a process that takes about ten minutes from start to finish, including homemade dressing. The salad turns out great, and then I can move on with the rest of my day.

I think most traders want something similar.

You want a process that feels smooth. You want to know where everything is. You want to be prepared. You want to protect yourself when things don’t go as planned.

And then you want to get back to the rest of your life.

👉 PS — Replay & Review Week Starts Tomorrow 

Just a quick reminder that we’re trying something new with Ticker Request Live tomorrow.

Instead of joining me live, you’ll have the opportunity to revisit one of three past TRL broadcasts and help us build the first edition of a Ticker Request Live Companion Guide.

We’ll send everything you need tomorrow, including the replay links and a simple survey where you can submit terms, concepts, questions, and observations you’d like explained further.

I’m looking forward to seeing what stands out to you when you revisit these broadcasts with fresh eyes!