I love watching CNBC. That may be surprising coming from somebody like me.

Many people view financial media as noise at best, or extremely biased at worst. And I don’t necessarily disagree.

However, I have learned to use CNBC as a market barometer over the years.

There are plenty of smart guests with great insights, and that information can help inform your trading decisions.

I remember a segment from a while back with the entrepreneur and crypto commentator Anthony Pompliano, or "Pomp," as he’s known on the show.

I wasn’t that familiar with his work since I spend most of my time in stocks and commodities, but I was impressed with his optimistic outlook.

During the interview, he said something that has stuck with me ever since…

"Luck is not real."

Here’s what he meant by that — and more importantly, how it could make you more successful in the markets.

A Philosophy for the Markets and Life

Pomp’s idea was that luck is a purely psychological concept. It’s about our perception of what has happened in the world around us.

He uses the example of two people in a similar car accident. Imagine they are severely injured and lose a limb.

One of the injured people might sit in their hospital bed and think to themselves how “unlucky” they were to be in the accident and lose a limb.

The one next to them might be thinking about how “lucky” they are to be alive.

They both have been through the same experience, but have a completely different perspective on what has happened.

Pomp pointed out that research shows that people who consider themselves lucky are likely to have better outcomes.

He’s right. I spend a lot of time thinking about the power of psychology and optimism in investing and life.

If you have a positive outlook, you are in a much better position to learn from and deal with failure.

Instead of being “unlucky,” you have an opportunity to improve your future outcomes.

This comes back to one of my favorite concepts: we make our own luck.

In his interview, Pomp discusses how luck is really related to probability. Probability is not a psychological concept but a mathematical one.

It’s also the concept that underlies our strategies for trading and investing.

We work to identify opportunities with a high probability of making money.

An unsophisticated observer could see our returns and say we are very "lucky.” We win at a much higher rate than would be random and outperform the stock market averages.

I argue that we make our luck by having a process to identify those opportunities.

Embedded in that process is also the idea of continual improvement and evolution.

I actively identify mistakes made in our losses and work to eliminate them. I look at our biggest wins and figure out how to maximize them.

I believe that our process works and that it can always get better.

This is a great perspective — not just for the markets but also for life!