I received some interesting questions about my sale of Potash (POT) yesterday.

Trading is the ultimate manifestation of emotions and temptation, so I employ a method I’ve named the "Odysseus Strategy" -- think of how Odysseus tied himself up in order to not be lured by the sirens' song. For more on that, please click here.

I guess if I had  to define it, it would be: "forced adherence to self-imposed rules."

It's of vital importance to come up with one's own personal metric in trading. Traders often have a hard time with discipline. I've previously written about how to tame your basic instincts.

Unlike big trading firms, individual investors have no bosses looking over their shoulders. Unlike institutional investors, there's no enforced rule-adherence. Individual traders have to act as our own bosses! It's imperative to be aware of this and trade in a disciplined manner with personalized rules for position-sizes, stop losses, and so on. Being a part of the Minyanville community should help. It's no wonder that people who join classes and groups have a better chance of achieving their goals, than people who go it alone.

In the late 1990s, I, like everyone else, relied on that trusted earnings jump. So this rule has been an evolution of the 2000 bear market. Since then, indeed there have been times when I've thought "this time it’s going to be different for this particular stock." I've been blinded by outcome bias and felt I shouldn't second-guess this personal-trading rule.

But as a species, humans are usually so focused on what we don't have that we rarely relish what we do have. This rule has been instrumental in avoiding disastrous earnings impact.

Even though it was Monsanto (MON) -- not Potash -- that was supposed to announce its earnings, I still chose to sell my profitable position in POT, since it's been acting very weak lately. Besides, I'd added to some other rockets, as I previously shared.

And most certainly, this strategy has helped me sleep better at night.

The elder JP Morgan was once approached by a friend who said he couldn’t sleep because of his large stock holdings.

“What shall I do?” he asked.

“Sell down to the sleeping point,” replied Morgan.

By no means am I advocating this suggestion as a universal trading rule. As a matter of fact, fundamentalists rely on earnings to validate their thesis, and I respect their stance.