Welcome back to the Trade Hacker Mindset. In this episode we are going to be continuing with our series of topics from the book by Mark Douglas called Trading in the Zone. In this episode we're going to be talking about the lure and dangers of trading. Trading the markets can be difficult to master and seemingly just out of reach. Professional traders have a secret.  It requires the Trade Hacker Mindset. All right so let's jump into our discussion of the lure and dangers of trading and talk about why so few people become successful at trading even if they've been accomplished or successful in other careers or other areas of their lives. So to start with what is the attraction of trading? What drew you into trading to begin with? Was it the action of the market?  I think back to when I first started trading and I think that kind of desire to be a hero if you want to put it that way is interesting. It wasn't like I was trying to necessarily be a hero in the sense that most people think about it but I certainly thought that it was really cool that somebody could sit in front of their computer and analyze the market moving and profit from that in a way that other people couldn't. So from that perspective I just was fascinated by the fact that people could do that that some people could and some people couldn't. So I guess that would classify this desire to be a hero. Also euphoria when you make a winning trade when you make money from simply clicking a mouse it can create a real sense of euphoria. But I think the absolute ultimate reason that the majority of people get into trading is for the aspect of freedom right? It's the financial freedom so you don't have to worry about paying your bills. It's the location freedom. You can work you know as long as you have an internet connection and a laptop you can literally trade from anywhere in the world.  And it gives us the freedom to express ourselves in a way that we might not be able to in other professions or other areas of our life. You know if you're like me you know I've been I've been self-employed. I've been an entrepreneur. I've been a trader my entire life and so part of the attraction for me is that I don't I don't like to play by other people's rules. I like to make my own rules. And when it comes to trading the markets we literally make all of the rules for ourselves. Now of course you know you've got to meet financial minimum requirements to open a brokerage account. But otherwise once you're ready to start trading the the possibilities that exist for how you go about doing it are really limitless. You know you can trade bonds. You can trade stocks. You can trade options. You can trade futures. You know there are so many different possibilities. You can do spreads. You can sell premium. You can buy options. You know there's there are limitless ways that you can trade. So if the trading environment is so unrestricted then why is the failure rate so high? You've probably heard statistics like 90% of traders fail within the first 12 months. And the reason is because if you have unlimited possibilities and you have unlimited freedom to take advantage of those possibilities that's like no other environment that we're used to as human beings. So this is going to create psychological challenges that very few people are actually properly equipped to deal with or frankly they don't really have even the awareness that it exists. And how are you supposed to overcome a problem if you don't even know that that problem exists? So this freedom this concept of freedom that's fantastic. Freedom is great but most people just don't have the mental framework to operate in an environment with so few boundaries. So let's take a step back. Let's go back you know deep into your childhood and kind of figure out okay why are we the way that we are? Everyone is born into some sort of social environment right? And when I say social environment that could be a specific family, a city, a state, a country, a culture, a structure, and every environment has some type of restrictions and boundaries or sets of beliefs that create this behavior that we live in. And this structure, this code of behavior, it limits individuals and how they can express themselves. And these structures were established before we were even born. And so when we show up in this world all of these things are already in place. And so it's pretty easy to see why a certain individuals need to express themselves, can conflict with what's already in place with the culture that we're born into. And as a trader we face this kind of fundamental conflict as well. So think about this. Ask yourself this question. Well it's one characteristic. What's one form of personal expression that every child born on this planet regardless of their culture or race or color or location, what is one characteristic that every child has? The answer is curiosity right? Every child is curious, every child is eager to learn. They're like little sponges that just soak in everything. They're like little learning machines. If you have kids you'll understand what I'm saying but even as infants kids seem to kind of know what they want and what they don't want. You know if you have kids I'm sure you've had an experience where you know your child who's just an infant they do something or they express themselves in something that they want or don't want. And you kind of look at your spouse like how do they know that they want that? And that's just the natural inner force that they have that every child has when they're born. So we all have these natural attractions to certain things and there's certain things we we love or attracted to and there's certain things that we that we are not attracted to and sometimes that comes as and then they kind of were born with that type of force within us. You know if you think about it I'm sure you could list out a lot of things that you have absolutely no interest in. You could probably make another list of things that you're sort of interested in and then lastly you could make a list of everything that you're just absolutely super passionate about and usually on that first list the the the list of things that you're not interested that's probably a pretty long list right and then the things that you're that you're somewhat interested in that list gets a little bit smaller and then the things that you're absolutely just extraordinarily passionate about that list gets even more narrow more small and and some of those things that we get from our environment but a lot of those true passions are really just part of our DNA they are they're part of our true identity they're part of who we are. Okay so we talked about the lure we talked about the attraction of trading what about the dangers of trading how about social conflicts you know the social culture the social structure that we're born into it it might contradict that our need our actual internal needs are in our internal interests so for example I grew up as an athlete I played sports I played primarily football and baseball and so it was pretty natural that when I became a dad and I had kids you know I had an interest in in hoping that they would become athletes as well and so as my kids were born and started to grow up and they saw me continue to play sports and have an interest in watching sports and and and doing athletic activities it was somewhat natural to think that they would probably want to do the same and so I've got my oldest son who is is that way he's he's die hard sports wants to watch football at the time wants to play football wants to play baseball non-stop 24-7 that's all he wants to do and then I've got my youngest son who actually at a very young age he was he did seem really passionate about basketball literally every time we would pass you know drive by and there's somebody with a basketball hoop in their driveway he would freak out because all he wanted to do is shoot baskets and we so we kind of thought okay you know he's he's going to be have an interest in athletics as well and then once he got to the age of starting to play organized sports started to put him in basketball and and he just kind of felt acted disinterested we tried soccer he played that a little bit but didn't show much interest started playing baseball I was coaching his baseball team and one day and this is after just a couple years of playing baseball really young still t-ball you know he comes up to me in the dugout in the middle of a game looks me dead in the eye and says dad I don't like sports now you know for for somebody who who loves sports you know that could be a little bit painful as a parent I mean so after I you know pulled the dagger out of my back you know I thought okay okay you know I mean that's that's totally cool you know we I think we all just want our kids to be happy so we ended up finding you know he didn't really do anything for about six nine maybe 12 months and then he finally you know started showing interest in playing musical instruments and now he goes to the school of rock and plays keyboard and he's great at it and he loves it he he's absolutely passionate about it but I've seen a lot of families or situations where there is a huge lack of support in that area you know so kids are sometimes denied their natural way of expressing themselves you know what if I would have told him no you are not playing music you are gonna get on that baseball field and you are gonna learn to love it well what happens is is situations like that can create an imbalance and an imbalance is when our inner needs or inner interests conflict with our exterior environment and experiences and this thing and this can range from really minor things or what you might perceive as minor with your children all the way up to major things I mean there are there are professional athletes who hate playing the sport that they play but sometimes the culture and the societal pressure for them to do and make their parents proud and and continue to do what they're what their social environment kind of forced them into it can really create mental and emotional pain and imbalance between your inner interest and desires versus what's going on in your external environment so I think sports and interests like that can be a pretty common example another very simple example could just be a simple situation where you know a child sees a hot stove light up and it's red and they want to touch it and so they go to touch it that's there in a very minute way that's their interest that's their that's their need that's they what they want to do and they get a lack of support because their parent yells no no don't touch that don't touch that right and so and so what do they do they back off and they start crying and and it creates this imbalance where their inner need or their inner want to touch that uh is is is kind of pushed away from them from their external environment and so sometimes it's a situation where the external environment our situation our culture our us as parents we're just trying to put protect our kids because they don't know what they don't know and so it's not always a situation of you're just you're forcing your kids to do something they don't want it's it's all of these little things that we experience growing up that we want to do but we're told no we can't do that and then it goes the other way as well when we do get something that we that we want when we do get to do something that we are curious about something that we're interested in that creates the the opposite state right it's inner balance we get a sense of satisfaction or happiness but it's when these environments are not in sync when they're not in correspondence that's when we start to experience dissatisfaction or anger or frustration or emotional pain so when we're denied freedom to express ourselves in some particular way why does this cause us this emotional pain mark douglas in his book says that you know kind of his theory on this is that needs and desires create mental vacuums and then in the world we live we have a natural tendency to not tolerate a vacuum and it moves to fill it whenever one exists so if a need creates a mental vacuum the universe is going to fill it with inspiring thoughts the thoughts that in turn can inspire movement and expression that result in the fulfillment of that need so if you think of your overall mental environment kind of just like the the the universe at large and once we recognize that need or desire then we then we move to fill that vacuum with an experience in the external environment that we live in and if we're denied that opportunity then or then it literally feels like something is missing it feels like we're not whole and it puts us into this state of imbalance or emotional pain you know if you take your take a toy away from a child who's not finished playing with it even if the reason you took it away maybe a good reason to take it away that child's going to experience emotional pain and by the time we're adults can you imagine counting how many times we've heard these things no no you can't do that you can't do it that way you have to do it this way no not now let me think about it no i'll let you know it can't be done what makes you think you can do it you have to do it you have no choice all these things that we hear growing up from our parents from our teachers from our coaches from you know anybody in a position of authority we literally hear thousands and thousands of denials by the time we become adults you know i call them denied experiences and mark mark douglas in his book calls him denied impulses so what happens to all these denied impulses that that don't get fulfilled do they just go away i mean sometimes they can if they're reconciled in some way you know if we do something or if somebody else does something that kind of puts our our mental state back to balance back into a balance you know a simple thing that a child does is they just simply cry right that's that's kind of their their strategy for creating that you know getting back into balance that's their that's their mechanism that they use to get back into balance is simply just to cry so even even though this original impulse may never have been fulfilled scientists have talked about how tears actually have negatively charged ions and so when crying happens it actually expels this negative negatively charged energy now just like there's no crying in baseball there's no crying in trading either although trust me there's been plenty of times where i've found myself almost in tears over trading in the past the problem is that most of the time these denied experiences they they they never get reconciled you know sometimes even as a a young boy you know i mean sometimes the reasons that your your parents don't want you to cry right especially boys you know don't cry be a man and so a lot of time this this this behavior is discouraged and there's a lot of times where you know parents don't even bother to explain to their children why they're being forced to do something that they don't want to do i mean i'm guilty of this just just as everybody is the reason you can't do this is because i said you can't do this right even if you do try to explain it to a child you know there's no assurance that it's actually going to be effective enough to to reconcile that imbalance that's going on inside that child so if these impulses if these desired impulses if they're never reconciled then they usually start kind of manifesting themselves inside of people and sometimes it creates an addictive or a compulsive behavior pattern you know i'm sure you've seen many people who something that they were deprived of as a child later in life actually becomes an addiction of theirs you know we all know somebody who who always has to be the center of attention they always need to have everybody paying attention to them and most likely it was probably because they were deprived or they didn't feel like they got enough attention when they were kids and so this deprivation becomes unresolved kind of emotional energy within them that that makes them behave in ways that they're gonna try to satisfy this addiction and maybe that doesn't apply to you or maybe it does but but regardless what's important is that we understand that that we all have these unreconciled denied impulses all of us have them inside of us and all of these things affect our ability to stay focused stay disciplined and relating it back to trading i know i kind of went off on a tangent but this all relates back to how we make decisions and how we control our discipline when it comes to trading it goes that deep it goes that deep into our childhood and all the experiences that we've had and our denial of these impulses that can have a major major effect on our trading all right so enough about your childhood let's let's jump more back into trading so to to operate effectively in this trading environment we have to set rules we have to have safeguards and we have to set rules that we're actually going to follow because if we don't set these rules if we don't follow these rules you can really create enormous damage that we can do to ourselves both mentally and financially so to prevent this possibility of our of exposing ourselves to damage we have to create an internal structure we have to create a a special mental discipline we have to create a a perspective about the markets that guide our behavior and we have to set these up so they guide our behavior in a way that creates value in our own interest for our best interest because think about this this this structure that we create it has to exist inside of us we have to create it in our mental environment because the market does not provide structure for us remember like what i said in the beginning the market has limitless opportunities there's limitless ways to trade so it does not provide any structure we have to create that structure for ourselves think about it the market's like a stream it's constantly in motion even even if they're closed even when the market's closed prices are still in motion and the reason people can come from other professions that they've been super successful in you know super successful doctors or entrepreneurs or lawyers or whatever it might be and they come to trading and they get their asses handed to them and the reason is is because in the in the markets it's a boundaryless environment there's nothing else that we do in our society that prepares us for this boundaryless environment when you're a trader there's there's no one except yourself that's going to force you to decide in advance what your risk is remember every trade has a probable outcome therefore there you know it could be a loser there is no trade that's a guaranteed winner and what separates winning traders from losing trader traders is that the consistent losers do almost anything to accept the reality that no matter how good a trade looks no matter how good the setup is there's still a possibility that that trade could lose and so without this structure in place you know a losing trader is going to be susceptible to a lot of justification rationalization because if he's thinking that he can't lose then there's no reason to define in advance what his risk will be and if you're not defining what your risk in advance will be then there's going to be problems for you as a trader so some of you might be thinking yeah but well what about gambling what about you know what about going to a casino and you'll hear people say who don't understand trading who are not real traders they will say you know gambling and trading are pretty close to each other you know what you know one's just a little bit more accepted than the other and that couldn't be further from the truth the reality is that trading is not gambling but there are a lot of traders who gamble let me say that again trading is not gambling but there are a lot of gamblers who trade and in sticking to our point about the you know the limitless opportunities and the the ability that you've got to create those those defined rules you know even in a casino or some type of gambling arrangement that's that structure is already in place think about this all gambling games have kind of a specified beginning middle and end once you decide you're going to play you can't change your mind you're in it for the duration of that game you know think about if you sit down at a blackjack table at a casino you put your money in well after the dealer flips the first card over you can't just take your money out you're in that for the duration of that hand you're in it from the beginning to the end of that hand but that's not true about trading trading the prices are constantly in motion and nothing begins until you decide it should begin and it lasts as long as you want it to last and it doesn't end until you want it to be over and so regardless of what you may have planned going in there there are so many different mental and psychological factors that can come into play that might cause you to change your mind become fearful become overconfident become distracted change your mind you know what there's a there's a unlimited number of things that can happen that can cause you to to change and get in or out or stay that you didn't plan to happen when you first started so because you know gambling games like blackjack or anything else in a casino because they have a formal ending they force you as a participant to be an active loser if you're on a losing streak you can't keep on losing without making a conscious decision to do so and at the end of each game it causes the beginning of a new game but trading has no formal ending the market's not going to take you out of a trade so unless you have the appropriate mental structure to end a trade in a way that's in your best interest you can actually become a passive loser in the market meaning once you're in a losing trade you don't necessarily have to do anything you can keep on losing you don't even have to watch you can just ignore the situation you can walk away so the fact that trading never ends this can be a curse or it can be a gift depending on how you use it in your in your own mental environment you know the gift is that you know it might be for the first time in your life you're in complete and total control of everything you do the curse is that there are no external rules or boundaries to guide or structure our behavior when we're trading so these limitless characteristics of the trading environment you know it requires that you act with some degree of restraint and self-control and this structure that we create is to guide ourselves through trading this has to originate in your mind and this is where we start getting into the problems that come along with with trading in the mental environment so one of the first problems that we run into with trading is is just our willingness to create rules remember we got into this we got into trading for the freedom and now you're telling me that I have to create rules so sometimes it's it's very black and white like that but on the other hand sometimes it's it's very subtle you know on one hand we agree that rules make sense that we got to have some rule that we got to have some rules that we have to have some structure but in the back of our mind we're kind of thinking yeah I'm really not going to follow these rules I mean I see it all the time in our community we stream live and I trade in front of our community every morning and you know our members are posting trades that they made and you know sometimes people say hey you know I took this trade in Microsoft and I'll look at the turn of Microsoft and you know there'll be nothing there that would have created a situation in my mind to take a trade and when they when I ask them you know it it usually comes down to it was a hunch you know they took the trade on a hunch because they felt like they knew what it was going to do but that didn't follow the rules we have very strict criteria that we lay out step by step for for how and why we take trades and so sometimes even even you know consciously we we understand the rules we see the rules we see the performance of that trading strategy based on the rules in the back of our mind you kind of think yeah but and it's kind of your ego talking right you you think you can do better and so you see why we're talking about these denied experiences these denied impulses because you know you've had all these denials all your life now you have this freedom and now I'm telling you now I'm kind of taking that toy away from you again so whether you're aware of it or not this this conflict starts happening in your mind while you're trading in other words the very reason we are attracted to trading in the first place which is the unlimited freedom of expression the unlimited freedom of potential financial gain the the location independence the freedom of being able to trade from anywhere anywhere in the world this is the same reason that we have this natural resistance to creating the rules and boundaries to to really guide our trading behavior it's like when we first start trading we found this utopia of freedom and then you have someone saying uh actually you've got to follow these rules it's not as free as you think and most traders understand that the need for rules makes sense but it's it's difficult to create that motivation it's it's difficult to create that structure in our own mind when we know that nobody else is making the rules for us one of the other major problems that we face as traders is the failure to take responsibility because remember trading is a it's a pure unencumbered personal choice and it has an immediate outcome remember how we talked about the example with the stream that's never ending the market's always flowing remember nothing happens until we decide to start and it lasts as long as we want and it never ends until we decide to stop it so while we may want this freedom and we want this ability to make these choices that doesn't mean that we're always ready and willing to accept the responsibility for the outcomes of trading so if you're not ready to accept that responsibility then you might find yourself in a little bit of a dilemma and that dilemma is how do you participate in an activity like trading that allows complete freedom of choice and at the same time avoid taking that responsibility if the outcome of your choice is unexpected is risky or it's not to your liking the reality of trading is if you want to create that consistency that consistent profit that every trader strives to get you have to start with the premise that no matter what the outcome of trading it is completely your responsibility and one of the reasons that that very few people succeed in trading even if they've been successful in another career or another endeavor is because very few people want to take on this level of responsibility and so when you become a trader it's a little bit of a foreign concept and the way to avoid this responsibility is simply to adopt a trading style that is basically random and when I say random I'm not talking about the potential randomness of the market I'm talking about random trading styles like poorly planned trades or trades that are not even planned at all or really just an unorganized approach that doesn't take any any structure into consideration Mark Douglas says randomness is unstructured freedom without responsibility I think that's a perfect way to put it randomness is unstructured freedom without responsibility because think about this when we trade with a well-defined trading plan but we have unlimited sets of variables in the market it can be very easy to take credit for the trades that turn out to our liking the trades that turn out well but it's easy at the same time to avoid taking responsibility for the losing trades so remember the market the market creates these patterns that repeat themselves over and over again so even though the outcome of a pattern can be random the outcome of a series of patterns over many many occurrences can be statistically reliable so as an example think about just flipping a coin right theoretically flipping a coin is a 50 50 probability 50% of the time it's going to land on heads 50% of the time it's going to land on tails but if you flip a coin 10 times you know there's there's a decent chance not a decent chance but there's a a significant chance that you could get eight heads and two tails right but does that does that have anything to do with over the long run because if you flip a coin a thousand times there's a much higher probability chance that you're going to end up getting close to 50% heads 50% tails so when it comes to trading you have this randomness on individual patterns but you have this statistically significant structure of patterns over a long time so this kind of creates a little bit of a paradox in our mind but it's something that can be resolved very easily if you have the discipline if you have the organization if you have a very consistent approach to your trading so tell me if this fits you i've i've worked with a lot of traders in our community interacting with traders and i've i've seen you know all kinds of market analysis and extensive planning for trades that they're that they plan on taking maybe it's the next day but then instead of putting on the trades that they actually planned they did something completely different you know maybe you're watching CNBC that morning and you got this tip that you thought was great or you jumped on reddit in wall street bets and you found the next big big yellow stock and then think about what happens you jump into this new idea that you just came up with at the spur of the moment and had you stuck to your plan and had you actually made the trades that you're going to make they would have turned out much much better you know this is a classic example of how we become susceptible to unstructured random trading and what's even worse is if that random idea that you just picked up that wasn't part of your plan strategy if that trade actually works out that just fuels your mind thinking that it's okay to trade that way and then going back to our point about responsibility if we trade our own ideas if we trade our own planned market analysis and strategies then our personal reputation is on the line in our minds in our ego we are now responsible for those but if we take the idea of somebody else we can always blame them because I shouldn't have taken that trade it was their fault and not mine however that's why it's difficult for some people to take their own trade ideas they want to they want to take the trade ideas of somebody else and that's because they don't want to take personal responsibility I see this all the time in the community where I talk to people about we're teaching you how to trade we're not trying to build you up as a copycat trader where you're just copying the exact trades we take we're trying to teach you how to trade so you can take ownership of your trading and it all comes back to this concept of taking responsibility another problem that we face as traders is what mark douglas describes as an addiction to random rewards he talks about some of the studies that have been done on giving random rewards to monkeys for example if you teach a monkey to do a task and consistently reward that monkey every time the task is done that monkey quickly learns to associate a specific random outcome with doing that task and to take it a step further if you stop rewarding that monkey for doing the task then it doesn't take very long for that monkey to simply stop doing the task the monkey doesn't want to waste energy doing something that it's now learned it won't be rewarded for however it's completely different if you start out the monkey with a purely random schedule for rewards so instead of consistently feeding the monkey every time it does the same thing so in other words if you if you just give random rewards to the monkey for for doing different things then that monkey really doesn't understand if the reward is going to go away or not because now when that monkey gets this random reward it it's kind of a surprise and so as a result from the monkey's perspective there's no reason to quit doing the task so sometimes the monkey will keep on doing the task even without being rewarded and and sometimes they'll continue to do it indefinitely so it's actually it's actually just a natural human behavior that we get addicted to random rewards and probably part of it is just the kind of the serotonin I think is the right word that that's released in our brain when we get this kind of euphoria type situation that comes from when we get kind of a surprise or an unexpected treat so if a reward is random we never really know for sure when we might receive it so many times we'll continue to expend energy and resources in the hope of experiencing that feeling again and think about it this is this is why a massive amount of people play the lottery you know they may have got one of those scratch and win tickets and they they won something they've they got that they got that dopamine that that serotonin I'm not sure if I'm using the right word there but one of those two and you know they get that euphoric state in their mind from winning and they didn't really have to do much to to get that and so they continue to do the same thing they continue to buying lottery tickets hoping that you know they might hit the big one or they might get that another another win to keep that euphoric state of mind going problem is if we expect a particular outcome and it doesn't come then we get disappointed we start to feel bad we start to feel disappointed and if it keeps happening then a lot of times this is when we just completely stop so think about it from a trader's perspective if you're randomly unorganized you know putting on trades and sometimes you get a hit sometimes you get a win but then you hit a string of losers you are more likely to quit because you you don't really know if that pain is going to continue or if you're getting a get back on the right track because what you're doing is completely random and if you as a trader have this addiction to random rewards then it's going to be another wall it's going to be another resistance to creating that consistency that we want as a trader all right so the last problem i'm going to talk about in this episode is the external versus internal control remember our upbringing the way we're raised the environment in which we are raised in is this social environment which means we have specific things that we want to fulfill our needs that fulfill our wants and desires geared towards that social interaction so not only have we learned to depend on each other to fulfill these needs and wants and desires but in the process we've actually acquired many socially based controlling and manipulating techniques for assuring that other people behave in a in a way that's consistent with what we want now you might be saying well no i don't do that i don't manipulate people i don't do any specific techniques or strategies to get people to to behave like i want but i assure you you do it could be very subtle it could be a subconscious but we all have these innate behaviors that have been created through this social environment that we've grown up in so part of the confusion comes in where you look at the market and it seems kind of like a social environment right a social endeavor because there's so many people involved but the participants within a market or just call it the market itself is not something that you're ever going to be able to depend on you can't depend on the market to do anything for you you can't depend on the market to give you anything in his book mark douglas calls the market a psychological wilderness where it's basically truly every man and woman for himself or herself and in the market there's no way to manipulate or control anything that the market does so if you are one of those people who have either subconsciously or consciously learn to kind of manipulate and control people to get what you want you're going to be very dissatisfied as a trader because there's no way to do that and that's really one of the main reasons that you find these really uber successful people in other professions but when they come to trading they fail miserably and that's because they you know in certain situations they have the control they have the ability to manipulate situations or people to gain what they're desiring to gain what they want and when they come to the market they don't have that ability that same trait that made them successful in something else is no longer something that benefits them when they're trading the markets so that's why we've got to rewire our brains so that we can learn to control only what we can control which is our perception and the interpretation of the information that the market is giving us and we can learn to control our own behavior instead of controlling our surroundings and when we can learn to control our mind when we can learn to have that self-awareness and and control ourselves that's when trading becomes ultra easy and ultra successful and and we create that consistency that we're always looking for I hope this episode was helpful if you'd like to be a part of our trade hacker community just go to community dot navigation trading dot com it's free to join we have hundreds of traders in there interacting daily not only about mindset things like we're talking about today but also sharing trade ideas and just interacting on a on a daily basis about trading in general so just go to community dot navigation trading dot com and we look forward to seeing you on the inside take care


Item number SCP-541. Object class. Neutralized. Special containment procedures. SCP-541 was kept in a plain pinewood coffin, some 1.98 meters or 6.5 feet in length, and with a stereotypical hexagonal construction. The lid to this coffin was kept affixed by means of four padlocks, for relatively easy access to its contents. Keys were in the possession of the on-site Level 3 technician heading research on SCP-541. SCP-541 could be removed from its coffin with care. The coffin could be moved with minimal limitations, and security measures proved by and large suitable for continued containment and storage of SCP-541. Description. SCP-541 was discovered in Peru in 1988 in the crypt of a local Catholic mission. The mission had been repurposed for several decades, and at the time of SCP-541's discovery was being converted into a youth hostel. The crypt beneath was being cleared for storage, with the corpses within being reburied locally. SCP-541 was discovered when the workers moving the coffin containing SCP-541 noticed wet noises coming from within. Investigation revealed SCP-541 led to local hysteria, then a brief fanatical following of SCP-541, believing it to be supernatural, or possibly saintly, akin to incorruptibility. The resultant attention led to a cursory investigation by our agents, followed by a total media blackout, confiscation of SCP-541, and extermination of those close to the object. SCP-541 is an intact set of human thoracic organs, including the lungs, heart, digestive system, etc. Notably, the organs operate in a grotesque but accurate imitation of an ordinary human body. Blood pumped, the esophagus performed peristalsis, and it appeared that the organism as a whole did not decay like normal organs did. What happened to SCP-541's original owner, if there was one, is unknown. The digestive system did operate normally, though there was apparently no need for food. SCP-541 had been sealed for at least several decades before its discovery. Also notable is that the entire system was closed. That is, there was no evidence of blood vessels ever pumping to extremities outside of a general abdominal area, and no indications of body structures, e.g. ligaments, nerves, membranes, indicating that a more complete organism was ever intact. Various experiments were performed on SCP-541 to determine more about it, and try to assess any use or adaptation for its unique structure. No container beyond the original pine box was deemed necessary. Document No. 541-1 Blood was drawn from SCP-541's system in small quantities to reflect the amount of blood estimated to be present in the system. The sterile needle wound healed itself through an apparently normal white blood cell platelet mechanism, and after several repeated intermittent blood drawings, researchers approximated that the blood replaced itself. Again, akin to a normal human body. Document No. 541-2 Application of basic, easily digestible and nourishing food products to the open esophagus of SCP-541 prove the digestive system works normally, including excretion. Document No. 541-3 Introduction of various stimulants, including caffeine, into SCP-541's system show that the subject responds predictably for its weight and condition. Document No. 541-4-13 Assorted tests to determine more about nervous communication among the component parts of SCP-541, various scans of the subject to try and learn more about its composition, and a brief battery of measurements to try and compare SCP-541 to the profiles of average, complete humans in an attempt to learn more about or approximate its age, height, weight, and health. For details on these reports, please contact Dr. Document No. 541-14 Director approves attempts to grow SCP-541, including hormone and steroid introductions, as well as attempts to culture SCP-541's cells. Results prove inconclusive on all counts, and testing continues. Document No. 541-15-18 Further testing on SCP-541 concurrent to orders outlaid in Document No. 541-14. Results continue to be inconclusive. Some cultures prove promising enough to continue research in the present direction. Document No. 541-19 During continued growth testing, SCP-541 goes into arrest, and cannot be revived. Following its death, the remains of SCP-541 dissolve into a fine powder within minutes. Cultures stagnate, and no clones of SCP-541 are produced. Addendum Lab technician b***** administered a drug dose appropriate for a normal human being of the age, height, weight, and fitness of SCP-541, as determined by tests recounted in Document No. 541-12-13. This proved fatal to SCP-541, as the subject was not a complete organism, and the dosage should have been adjusted accordingly. Technician was reprimanded, and moved to bottom level duties, with restricted opportunities for advancement and promotion. Addendum Find powder that remains of SCP-541 and coffin are contained at storage site b*****. There has been discussion of attempting to reassemble SCP-541 by the use of SCP-914, but some concerns have been expressed about whether or not the powdered remains of SCP-541 represent the entirety of the subject, and whether or not it would be able to survive the shock of reanimation. Lesson Complete If you missed the previous orientation, go watch SCP-540, Tannenbombs, right now. Or for the complete course, watch this playlist.


What's going on y'all Chris from jasky's case breaks.com our last box 2020-2021 Panini Immaculate basketball our last box random team number 55 Thanks everyone for buying straight-up spots. Thanks to everybody for buying into fillers and the 20 guys who got in Right down here. Congrats. Congrats. Thanks again. Claire all the way down to David from Prism 230 to 239 And our teams as well from the Hawks down to the Wizards our dice will roll for both randomizers Three and three more doubles six. So six total for both spots. Good luck one two three four Five and last one six We go Bjorn down to Nick and our teams six times three and three good luck one two three four Five and our last one six. Good luck Rockets down to lizards was it again the last spot like the Hawks were the first spot last time All right So here's what we have Here are our teams and our players Jordan with the Rockets Nick S with the Thunder Tim with the Celtics Brian with the Mavs Tim with the Nets and T Wolves Nice David with the Nuggets and Warriors Nick with the Hawks Daniel with the Knicks Diego with the Suns David G with the Hornets and Pistons both from fillers Nice Brian with the Pelicans David with the Kings Diego with the Grizzlies Connard with the Magic Claire with the Jazz David with the Raptors and Clippers as we heard of 21 now Kevin with the Cavs David with my Lakers Brian with the Sixers Nick with the Nick with the Pacers Daniel with the Spurs Tim with the Bucks Nick with the Bulls Blazers heat and Wizards to end it All right I will give the video a pause see if anybody wants to discuss any trades and when we get back We will rip this last box of a Mac good basketball. You're right back y'all