St-Pierre to Traders: Preparation Beats the Fear

Shopify president Harley Finkelstein and UFC Hall of Famer Georges St-Pierre sat down at Startupfest in Montréal to talk about the one thing both fighters and entrepreneurs never outgrow: pre-performance anxiety. St-Pierre put it plainly. "The way you raise your level of confidence is with preparation," he said. "Being confident is not the absence of fear; it's knowing that you have what you need in order to succeed." Finkelstein, who runs earnings calls for a $110 billion company, said the same principle applies whether you are stepping into the octagon or into a quarterly update.

The Business Development Bank of Canada found that 36 percent of business owners report mental health challenges that interfere with their ability to work at least once a week. Among entrepreneurs under 40, that number hits 60 percent. St-Pierre, who has spoken openly about his own obsessive-compulsive disorder, advised the founders in the room to lean into that fear and use it to drive preparation.

For a trader, the parallel is direct. Markets never stop delivering uncertainty. The gap between the plan and the trade is where anxiety lives. Preparation closes that gap. That means more than reviewing a chart. It means rehearsing the scenarios: what happens if the number prints hot, what happens if it prints soft, what position size survives the worst case. A trader who runs those scenarios before the open is a trader who can execute without hesitation when the stress hits.

The BDC numbers suggest that the mental health cost of running a business is substantial. A trader running a concentrated portfolio or managing a prop account faces similar pressure. The weekly interference rate of 36 percent – higher for the under-40 cohort – mirrors the burnout pattern that eats trading accounts. St-Pierre's advice to use fear as a preparation trigger is a practical tool. The fear of losing money is not something to ignore. It is something to rehearse against.

St-Pierre retired from professional fighting in 2019 and moved into entrepreneurship with a Montréal clothing brand and a custom vodka. He said he will never get the same high from a UFC championship, so he reoriented his goals toward another pursuit. The same discipline that made him a champion now applies to building a business. The same discipline that makes a trader survive a drawdown is the discipline that comes from knowing the plan before the stress hits. St-Pierre's rule: confidence is preparation. That rule does not change with the asset class.