How do I develop the patience to succeed in physical commodities?

I work in physical commodities. 

I would describe a lot of the job as being "in the weeds." 

Dealing with unhelpful railroads, pipelines, and regulators. It's not like banking - you have to deal with a very wide range of people. 

I am a reasonably capable and motivated young person. But not everybody is like this. 

I really do think physical commodities can be a grind in a way that not a lot of people outside the industry would understand.

There's been a few times where I've been close to blowing a gasket on some pipeline/rail operator. And obviously I don't want this to happen - it could totally derail my career

How can I learn to keep my cool at all times? 

3 Comments
 
Most Helpful

At all times? No idea.

Some things I find helpful are keeping people in the loop around me on my team. You have to have people around you you can make fun of counterparties with, blow some steam off with etc..

Definitely give emails a cool-off period. Do things over the phone as much as possible.

There is usually a lot of multi-tasking going on but I find that the more  things I have on my plate at once, the likelier I am to get frustrated when I hit resistance on any one thing. If something is annoying, table it until you  can knock some other things out and then  take it head on.

 

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Namaste. D.O.U.G.

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