Investing, Software Development & Mental Health | EP #1

yes it is Monday morning I haven't looked at the stock market yet but I

imagine it's probably a little bit flat to up a little bit probably I don't know

what I found so I've taken an interest in investing recently as I've written

about on my blog as I've talked about on this show I've taken an interest in

investing recently managing my own money

so right so I'm I've been managing my own money in my own in my own brokerage

account so I've been paying a lot of attention to the markets but ironically

what I found is that paying less attention to the markets is actually

better for long-term success see when I first got interested in this I was

consuming every podcast every news article etc just anything related to

stocks and trading and finance I was just consuming like voraciously

consuming it right and I found that that just leads to information overload and

it can actually contribute to bad decision-making so I've stopped doing

that I kind of just have a select few podcasts that I listen to now and I'm

not watching the prices all the time I'm not watching my stock portfolio all the

time I kind of I just check it like a few hours after the market opens instead

of trying to trade the open because trying to trade the the market open can

lead to some pretty bad decision-making I've found not necessarily I mean you

could actually take it back a little bit you can actually capture some really

good prices play in the open I found that you can get some pretty good

entries on stocks by like setting a limit order under the market by a

significant amount and sometimes like the price volatility off the open will

get you a fill but sometimes it just keeps going down and that that happens

as well anyway the stock market is just one of the things that I've been

interested in recently obviously I have many interests and I'm still I still

make a living as an app developer that is my primary source of income although

I have found that I can make more money with my money that I am actually that

I'm making with my apps but but

investing is not not good for my soul if that makes any sense so investing it's

not that interesting to me I mean it is interesting okay but it's not fulfilling

I think investing in and of itself as a profession I don't think it is actually

a legit profession I think it's it's it's more like something you do on the

side and it's kind of it's kind of like I don't even it's not a hobby per se it's

just it's not something I could dig my teeth into and focus on full-time I need

to have my trade and my trade is software development and I need to keep

practicing my trade for mental health purposes really I need to get it get

back out there and I've recently somewhat recently over the past maybe

year I've been focusing less on my my develop app development and I need to

get back into it I need to focus more on it and I think it's gonna be good and

right now one of the projects I'm working on is I'm redoing I'm redoing

one of my apps I'm doing a version two of one of my apps that I released many

years ago I think I released it maybe five six years ago it's an app called

grid draw and it's an app for creating grid based artwork and currently the

current version it's just it just allows you to create artwork on a grid and

everything snaps to the grid so it's just it's very pure in that respect and

that it doesn't it's not a general purpose

it's not a general purpose like vector art tool although it is vector based

it's not general purpose just because everything snaps to the grid it's all

about the grid there's no traditional spline editing and stuff like that

not like an illustrator or something so it's all grid based but anyway the new

version I'm kind of undecided on whether it's gonna be as strict

but what I do know is that I wanted to have multiple types of grids and in

addition to being able to pan and zoom the grid I want to be able to rotate the

grid so it's gonna have two types of grids your traditional square based grid

and a grid composed of squares and it's also gonna have a grid composed of

triangles so you're gonna be able to have a triangle grid to create your

artwork on so that's gonna be my innovation for this new version

primarily and that's what I've been working on that's what I've been working

on I love so yep that's the gist and I might actually make this into a regular

podcast for all I know maybe this will actually be a thing I do regularly and I

won't self-censor and it could actually be something I do on the daily but we'll

see we'll see

bottom line is I just need to get back into my work I've been focusing too much

on hobbies and when you're just like well hobbies and investing I've been

focusing too much on hobbies and investing and when that becomes your

primary focus that can lead to what I found is it leads to mental health

problems down the road so I need to get back into my profession focusing on that