FXGirl

Hi, Laguna: I'm not sure I agree with you. I think that discipline and patience can be taught. Little kids aren't disciplined or patient but they learn (at least some of them do). Even adults can learn discipline and patience - look at what happens in the armed forces. As for most adults, if they have a good enough motivator, they can learn just about anything if they are given the right information. As to loving trading, I think that people love different things about the experience of trading. I started out loving the "puzzle" aspect of trading. Some love the challenge, some love that they are in control of their time and effort, etc. If traders become successful, I think they love the rewards of trading. So, if you can teach trading successfully, maybe, in the end, you are teaching love of trading.

Shakespeare, you make a good point about “making the mistake of believing that YOU can single handedly make someone successful…” Some people will have problems executing even the most profitable system. So if you are going to offer a guarantee, it has to be on the system itself, not a trader’s results with trading the system. Tradewinds, I like your idea that the upfront cost of the trading system or course should be small. That makes it more affordable (easier to pay for the system later when you are making money than at the beginning) and more attractive (if it doesn’t work, you haven’t invested a lot of money in the system/course). And I also like the idea that if you can’t teach someone to make money, then you shouldn’t be getting any – in fact, I like that a lot! Some of the guys in the group I trade with are trying to come up with a fair model for offering Forex day trading signals with a live trading room. Here is what they are considering: 1. Signals and trading room on a pay-by-the-week basis, unsubscribe anytime. 2. If their signals (as announced in the daily morning trading room) don't make enough pips so that if you were trading one standard lot you would cover the cost of the weekly subscription, that week is free. 3. Free mentoring for 30-days (must be subscribed to the signals/trading room during that time). Mentoring consists of two small-group sessions each week with a master trader. Sessions will focus on addressing specific trading issues the participants are having. Charging by the week would make it a reasonable cost to try the system (one of Tradewind’s criteria). The pay-only-when-we-win aspect would address another of Tradewind’s requirements and also speaks to Shakespeare’s caution about not pinning a refund to individual results. The free mentoring is in the interest of both the trader and the signal provider. The more support you can give traders, the more likely they will be successful with your system and want to continue. What do you think?

Jaysmith: Since you are already familiar with transactional analysis (one of my favorite ways of looking at how we are put together), you might think of your attributing a profitable trade to luck as something that your child ego state learned earlier in life as a result of your experiences and how you evaluated them at the time. Somehow that belief (attribution, rule, cognition, strategy, or whatever you want to call it) made sense back then (for reasons that only you would know), but now, in a different environment and as an adult, it doesn't serve you. Now you get to challenge that belief, unhook the emotional charge it carries and replace it with something new, more reality based, and more supportive of your goals. Your adult ego state can certainly help you with the cognitive part of this, your nurturing parent ego state can help with the emotional piece. You'll hear people (including therapists) say that people don't change until they are desperate and that change is slow and hard work. Yup, that's true for some people, but not everyone. Change can happen in a million different ways, in a million different timeframes. The idea that you have to suffer in order to change is just another belief that isn't necessarily true. Everyone does it their own way, in their own time. I urge you to be creative about the process. Don't take it too seriously and have some fun with it. A sense of humor is a great healer. You might like "Learned Optimism" by Martin Seligman. He speaks about the kind of kind of attributions we make and how to change them.

Hi, Jaysmith124: Most people don't have much in the way of problems with the type of medication your doctor prescribed, so if you are going to take an anti-depressant, it's not a bad one to try. I agree with Rande, sometimes medication is what makes the difference. If your are into a natural approach, you might want to check out a couple of sources of information on supplements and diet that also have an effect on mental functioning: Magnificent Mind at Any Age by Daniel Amen, M.D. and The Ultra Mind Solution by Mark Hyman, M.D. I've seen changes in diet and supplementation make a significant difference.

Dear MMS: Emotions aren't the problem, behavior is. It is impossible to be emotion-free. Our brains and physiology are hardwired to produce emotion, and decision making doesn't take place without emotion (people with brain injuries who have no emotions are unable to make decisions). Emotions are information. If, as a trader, you have developed good strategies to handle your emotions whatever they are, you'll be able to stick to your trading plan. If your strategies aren't up to handling either your positive or negative emotions, you behavior will reflect this and you'll do things at don't support your trading goal. Emotion -> strategies -> behavior. Now the strategies are the complicated part. But that's for another post.

Dear Ingot: Please accept my apologies if you felt that I was being patronizing. My “Ah, Ingot, dear Ingot” was meant only as a friendly, conversational way of beginning the post, as though we were old friends sitting together having a cup of coffee. Without the cues of vocal inflection, body language and facial expression, it’s easy to see how we can miss read each other – sorry if I wasn’t clear. I do believe that you are absolutely and unequivocally right when you said, “The shift HAS to happen in the head before it will happen in the account.” That shift is the psychological aspect of trading. We agree that the successful trader must “…take responsibility for yourself, and APPLY with FOCUS, CONSISTENCY, COMMITMENT the RULES you have learned, to your WRITTEN STRATEGY.” But being able to stay focused and trade consistently with commitment, as you have said, requires “shift” in the head, hence psychology – the mental game of trading. I think the place where we disagree is in how that shift can happen. If a trader can do that for himself, that’s great, I’m all for it. This is obviously your preferred method and the crux of your point “Your Mama Doesn’t Trade… Do Wise Up to Yourself!” But not everyone is able to do it this way. What about those traders? I think that most people who stick with trading are willing to put in the hours and do the hard work. But for some, success is still elusive. It isn’t just a matter of maning up, getting disciplined, trying harder, etc. because they have already tried that and it wasn’t enough. They need some help with their “shift”. Your point about the sharks in this industry is well taken. You got ripped off by a number of people early in your career by various courses, etc. So did I, and so may have most of us. But not all courses and coaches are like that. My mentor was the real thing, and Rande is the real thing. And I’m sure that the traders on this thread have encountered others that are truly helpful. But you are right, it’s hard to sort the wheat from the chafe, and as an industry, it would be better if we had a lot fewer of the chafe. So if we are winding down on this thread, I’ve enjoyed chatting with you. I’ll watch for your comments on other threads.

That dorsal fin has always turned out to be a dolphin.

Dear MM: In a trading world where we are face to face, what you say about scarring the other trader would be true. But since generally we are face to face with our computers, the real struggle is with our internal dialogue that may be telling us we are wrong, etc. But I like the construct you use: “You need to be aggressive to trade. I do not mean maniacal. Strategically aggressive.” Very good - that way of looking at trading obviously works well for you. But for me, it’s more about harmony. Maybe it’s a girl thing. And because I grew up in southern California, for me the best analogy is surfing: You see the wave coming (clear intent in the market). You time your entry, turn the board around and wait until you feel it (meets my trade criteria). The water where you sit begins to suck back into the face of the oncoming wave (pullback). Then when you feel the power of the wave under you, you dig in and paddle (entry). The wave pulls you up and you take the ride. As the power of the wave ebbs, you kick out (take profit), and paddle back out for the next wave (next trade set up). No battle of wills for me, just harmony with what is. We all find what works for us as individuals.

Ah, Ingot, dear Ingot: 1. The truth is, you can’t be a successful trader if you don’t have an edge that works (we can all agree on that). 2. Nobody is arguing that psychological help is a substitute for having an edge. 3. But if you have an edge and can’t trade it, something psychological is getting in the way. In an ideal world, when someone started to trade he would be given a trading system with clear, concise rules and a known win/loss ratio. Then, if he were unable to come close to that win/loss ratio, we would know that psychological issues were impacting his trading. Oh, that the world were so simple! But people don’t learn to trade that way. They struggle to develop an edge. They read, they study, they seek expert advice, they back test, they win, they lose, they try another approach, etc. And during that process their psychological architecture, or as Rande puts it, their belief system, impacts how they approach developing their edge and how they respond to the experience of frequent losing trades. Rande is spot on when he says, “it is those beliefs that do your trading.” Regarding your points: 1) So what kinds of things happen to a trader to bring out these anxieties/problems? Obviously, they have losses. 2) Were these pre-existing – perhaps the trader is unsuited emotionally/psychologically to trade? Sure, almost any reaction we have as an adult has echoes from the past. If you believe that “perhaps the trader is unsuited emotionally/psychologically to trade”, you have acknowledged that psychological issues can impact the ability to trade. It’s all a matter of degree. 3) Did the problems develop as a result of negative trading experiences? Of course they did… in conjunction with the unresolved issues, inaccurate beliefs, and ineffective strategies (just like we all have) that the trader brought with him when he started trading. 4) Were these trading experiences a result of poor preparation technically, and thus can be rectified in the same way? Maybe and maybe not. We’d have to examine this on a case-by-case basis. 5) Can Psychological therapy/counseling really bring a trader with a poor strategy/approach to trading to a condition of positive outcome? Oh, Ingot, now you are just being silly. If you don’t have an edge, you won’t be successful no matter how psychologically healthy you are. But if you have an edge but can’t trade it, you won’t be successful either. Or if you don’t have an effective belief system, you won’t every get as far as developing your edge. There is no getting around that the market is, in any moment, unpredictable and that trading is full of ambiguity and risk. Everyone has to find a way to deal these attributes; having a technical edge is a fundamental part of the process, the rest is psychological. You have said, “Once a trading plan is in place, with a trading strategy providing an edge, and once sound money management is utilized, the rest will eventually follow”. How long would you like “eventually” to be? Would sooner be better?

In the interest of having a fuller discussion of the link between the technical issues and psychological issues of trading, I’d like to share some observations about becoming a successful trader that I think often get over looked or are give short shift. First, everyone brings attitudes and assumptions (rules, if you like) about money and what it means to trading. In addition, everyone brings expectations of what the rewards will be. And everyone brings a level of risk tolerance to trading as well. So from the very beginning, there are psychological issues that impact trading. Second, when we start to trade, we struggle with mastering the technical issues, key among them is developing a system (edge) that works. Unfortunately, trying to develop an edge comes at the time that we know the least about the market – a perfect formula for frustration and failure (psychological issues here!). As Todd has said, “For the first two years of my trading life my trades rarely went anywhere because I was picking crummy trades.” Trading is not like other endeavors (golf or tennis have been used as examples in this thread) because there is no way to create a graded learning experience for the novice where the level of competence is matched to a slightly higher level of difficulty. In trading we just get thrown into the deep end of the pool and have to learn to swim. Again, as Todd has said, “If I am having trouble pulling the trigger, it’s because I don’t believe in my edge.” Oh, so true. If you keep getting your head handed to you on a plate, why would you develop any confidence in your ability to trade? But wait, confidence and belief are psychological issues. So here is my third observation: Developing technical expertise cannot be separated from psychological mastery. These two issues are always, always, confounded. There is no such thing as developing an edge independently from the psychology of trading. If you don’t believe me, think of the difference in the mindset of a child who grows up receiving constant criticism as opposed to one who receives appropriate encouragement and feedback. Which experience is most like learning to trade? Fourth, as Ingot said, “Nothing can replace the experience of screen time, and more screen time.” Again, this is so true. Trader’s intuition, unconscious pattern recognition (implicit learning), only develops when we see the same pattern (with slight variations) in market movement again and again. If the point of having a trading plan is to have a clear set of entry, exit, etc., criteria and to execute that plan precisely according to the rules, then where do we use our trader’s intuition? We use it to refine our trading plan and hopefully improve our win/loss ratio. And we use it when we sense that what we are seeing in the charts isn’t working the way our system anticipates – and we don’t stick to the plan. So if we use it to know when the plan isn't going to work, is there a different set of rules for traders who truly reach the level of having great market intuition? And how would we know when we reach this level? I think this leads to a very important question: How do we separate out trader’s intuition from impulse? Now we are back to psychological issues. Unless we are paying attention to what we feel, there is no way to separate intuition from impulse. For me, intuition varies from being similar to glimpsing something in my peripheral vision to a revelatory “ah ha” or “knowing what the market will do”. On the other hand, impulse is a product of unease, anxiety, or fear, and for me is usually accompanied by physical phenomena such as tension in my shoulders and/or shallow breathing. Others may have an entirely different take on distinguishing between the two – I’d love to hear about it. Fifth, and I’ve said this before on another thread, the point of trading is to make money not prove that we are smart, tough, capable, etc. So why would we, as beginners, go through the time, pain and cost of developing our own system of trading if we could start out using an existing successful system? (For the moment, I’m going to set aside the issue of how you identify a successful system or set of signals.) Why not just learn a successful system and use it? What makes us feel that the only way to become a real trader is to develop our own system? Sounds like a psychological issue to me.

Dear Ingot: Sorry, I should have written LOL after my rant on balls, cajones, etc. I don’t have a problem with your colorful language. Nor do I disagree with your premise that you and you alone are responsible for your trading outcome – that is your premise isn’t it? I think where we part ways is in the amount and type of help a trader should seek along the way. Let me emphasize that I agree with you about the quality of offerings of many (but not all) in the trading industry – they simply aren’t worth the time and effort to sign up, let alone the money they charge. Certainly any of those that discount the time and effort needed to learn to trade and exaggerated the financial rewards are in this category. However, I do think that there are a few out there that truly can be helpful; the difficulty is for the new trader to identify them. Although you were able to solve your impulse problem by following a written trading plan (and no one should trade without a set of clear rules), for some that isn’t sufficient. Even when they have a clear, concise trading plan, they still continue to take impulse trades. When that is the case, cutting the apron strings with your mother or getting a set of balls isn’t enough. It’s more complicated than that. But you knew that. Although some people do need to reach “disgust” before they start to make the necessary changes in their lives, not everyone uses that path. It’s dangerous to generalize from your own experience (or those of a group of people) and assume that this is the best way or only way change can happen. I’m sure you can see that someone who’s internal dialogue is “I’m so disgusted with myself” has different emotional architecture than someone who’s internal dialogue is “I know I can do better” in response to the same situation. And while you suggest that the proper place for psychologists is to “assess the mental aptitude of an aspiring trader”. I don’t think that there is a “Trading Personality Profile”. Sure, some people are more risk adverse than others, or more prone to making impulsive decisions, etc., but anything that isn’t hardwired is modifiable, so unless you have a brain function problem (brain damage or AD as examples), you can probably become a competent trader if you are willing to do the work and have the proper guidance. The problem for all of us in terms of making changes is that we can identify what we are unhappy about, but have a more difficult time identifying the underlying assumptions and rules we have taken on that keep us stuck. It’s like the old question, “Does a fish know it’s swimming in water?” And even when we have an idea of our underlying psychological architecture, it’s still difficult to create a new reality and act on it. And this is where a trading psychologist can be of help. The human psyche is incredibly complex, which is why you won’t see one book, one article, or one course on trading psychology that reaches everyone. If you read Brett Steenbarger’s excellent book, The Daily Trading Coach, 101 Lessons for Becoming Your Own Trading Psychologist, found those exercises that related to your trading issues, and then actually did what he suggests consistently for a long enough time to change your behavior, you might get great benefit from his book. The problem is that many people can’t seem do this; they need more personalized, in-depth help. Again, this is where a trading psychologist can be of help. You can struggle for years on your own, or you can get help, get it fixed, and get on with making money. Oh, yes, Ingot, I almost forgot. Any idea where that 95% failure statistic came from? P. S. My income tax occupation is “trader”.

Dear Ingot54: As a woman, I don’t feel the need to find some balls, get some cojones, nor show I have the ‘nads to succeed as a trader. However, I do get your point that you and you alone are responsible for your trading success or failure. I think you and agree on some important points, to be a successful trader: I do have to have clear, specific rules for entry, exit, stop-loss, and money management. I do have to be able to consistently execute my trading plan. I do have to manage my emotions in a way that supports my trading goals. And I must recognize that I, and no one else, am responsible for my trading decisions. I do feel that learning to trade requires great effort, commitment, and persistence. Each person responds to this challenge differently based on his/her skills, experience and personality. There is no one right way. It is silly to characterize those looking for help as looking for “hand holdin”. Trading is a complex skill. Why wouldn’t a beginner/intermediate trader want to get some help and guidance? Do you think that Yo Yo Ma said, just give me the cello and I’ll figure it out myself? I have no quarrel with those who read books, attend seminars, take courses, or work with coaches. I just hope they find the books, seminars, courses, and coaches that are truly valuable. As you have pointed out, there is a lot of junk/hype out there – but that doesn’t mean that there are no good ones. You don’t have to do it on your own…unless, for some obscure reason, you prefer to make your learning curve as long as possible. However, I do think that there is no substitute for time in front of the charts. And only you can give that to yourself. This is the only way to develop the subconscious pattern recognition skill (intuition) that is the hallmark of an accomplished trader. Just as Tiger Woods had to practice his swing again and again, a trader has to see a pattern (and all of it permutations) again and again to make it his own. Just as there is no substitute for time in front of the charts, there is no substitute for developing the emotional management skills needed to be successful. By your own admission, Ingot, you still struggle with impulsivity after all these years. Just finding “some balls” may not be the most effective strategy to curb impulsive trading. As you have pointed out, if you keep doing the same thing, you’ll keep getting the same result. Smart traders find someone like Rande (who, by the way, really knows his stuff) to help them try something different. As you have said, some people do seem to have to be “at the end of an emotional tether” before they do the internal work. Others recognize the emotional pinch much sooner, are proactive and make changes before they reach the end of the tether. As a psychologist, I disagree that “ONLY when you are SO disgusted with your situation…when you are totally at your limit of frustration…you will find the drive to do what you HAVE to do”. There are other motivations, some much more powerful than disgust or frustration, to help you move towards excellence.

I watch my body. When it starts to feel uncomfortable, restless, breathing shortens, muscles tense, it shifts position, moves closer to the screen, shoulders move up, hand moves towards the mouse, (any or all of these) I ask myself out loud, “What are you feeling?” Then I say EVERYTHING I’m feeling out loud. “I’m scared this trade isn’t working….I think I got in too soon….I may lose this one….I don’t think it’s going to come back….this makes me feel like a failure….when am I going to really get this….” Next, I breathe. Then I breathe again….and again, and again until my shoulders come back down, my muscles relax, my heart and breathing rate slows. Once my body is comfortable, I ask myself: Which part of this information (my feelings) is ABOUT ME…which part is ABOUT THE MARKET? If I’m still feeling agitated, I know I have to deal with the feelings about me first. If I’m reasonably calm, I can deal with the information about the market. I know that this sounds somewhat mechanical, and it is. But just as I use a trading plan and know exactly what market conditions mean I take a trade, I use an emotional plan to deal with the feelings. The key for me is becoming aware of what emotions are about me and what are about the market. Full disclosure: I am a psychologist and I do work with traders, mostly in groups, some individual. This process doesn’t work for everyone. What I’m sharing here is what works for me, what I actually do when I’m trading.

If you are interested in practical strategies to manage the emotions of trading, you can't beat Brett Steenbarger's The Daily Trading Coach: 101 Lessons for Becoming Your Own Trading Psychologist. Although I very much enjoyed Steenbarger's two earlier books, they are more focused on the process of therapy and contain many stories about his own clients. His first book, The Psychology of Trading, focuses on the brief therapy model that Steenbarger's uses in his clinical work and draws on his experience with clients who are not necessarily traders. As a psychologist, I found this book great fun, watching a master at work, but I think that the information would be tough to translate into practical strategies for most traders. That's where Steenbarger's third book, The Daily Trading Coach, comes in. The techniques and suggestions in this book are practical and doable. No matter where you struggle with the emotional aspects of trading, you'll recognize yourself in his descriptions and find a strategy that you can use.

Hi, Jack: Thanks for your observations about the difference between faith and trust. I chose the word ‘faith’ because I thought it better reflected the emotionally laden nature of trading and might provoke a deeper level of consideration of the role managing emotions plays in trading success. However, if you would prefer to use the word trust, that is fine with me. I think we are talking about the same concept. I was interested in your observation, “…many can’t get over the emotional desire to want certainty”. Trying to predict market movement is always difficult. Despite all our well-researched, and well-tested system, we never truly know what the market is going to do next. Traders have varying levels of comfort with this ambiguity. For some, ambiguity is enormously distressing, for others, it is mildly uncomfortable, for a very few, it’s exciting. Where we lie on this continuum impacts what kinds of emotional management strategies we must develop in order to trade our chosen system successfully. Thanks for the link to Delusions of Gender – I’m listening to it now.

I'm a day trader. I just don't trade around the news - I'm out before the news and wait until the market settles down before I get back in.

I've had my account with Oanda for about 2 1/2 years. I've always been very pleased with spreads, execution and service.

"I want to study innovation, creativity, trading, life, everything unrelated to what i am currently studying: accounting... So i am thinking about enrolling in independent studies next year... or just getting out of school for good and pursuing real life. Why should i remain unhappy to make others happy...they aren't living my life." Johnjohn: You are right. It is your life, only you experience it, only you are responsible for what you create with it. Choose what brings you joy. If you don't know what that is, go find out. Be bold. Be creative. Do it, whatever it is, with love and compassion. P.S. School is real life. It's just a different life from the "real life" in the world of work.

BlowFish, thanks for your suggestion. What you say about MT4 is so very true and exactly what was driving me crazy when I moved over to their trading platform. I got the wrong link in the post above. Here is the correct link for 1ClickFX: https://www.4xgoldkeys.com/1ClickFX.php

I took my problems with MT4 to the guys in my trading group and found that many of us were struggling with the same issues. Two of the fellows programmed a tool that makes it easy to day trade. You can learn about it at http://www.4xgoldkeys.com/results.php. It's called 1ClickFX and it's free. When you register for it, you'll be signing up for an email list as well, but it's well worth it if you day trade with MT4. Just wanted to share what works for me.

Great seminar in Vegas, Randy. It was nice to see you there. You made an excellent point about the role of compassion.

I've just switched my account to a new broker that uses MetaTrader4. Like the broker, hate the trading platform, but, hey, it's good to make changes in life, right? Because I'm such a newbie to MT4, please be gentle. I need to find a way to "Close all buys" and "Close all sells". Ideally, l'd also like to find a way to "Close all EUR/USD buys" and "Close all EUR/USD sells" (or whichever currency I'm trading at the time), and a "Close all open positions". I know that there are EA's and/or scripts out there that do this, but I don't have a clue about how to install them on MT4 -- I told you I was a newbie to MT4. I'd greatly appreciate any help. Thanks to any kind and generous traders out there who are willing to step me through this.

Zdo, you said: "FxGirl mentioned beginners might be served well to ‘subscribe’ to someone else's edge at first. I disagree! Wearing someone else’s pants is antithetical to ever making an edge truly your own. Trading someone else’s edge is a big mistake for all but a very few beginners/strugglers! In all performance work, ‘talent’, ‘tricks’, ‘cheatsheets’ at the beginning do help – but in the long run are extremely overrated. Just ask Derek Jeeter, Tom Brady, Tiger Woods, Stu Ungar, Phil Ivey, Bernard Barach, or Michael Marcus, etc etc." Wow, Zdo, that’s an interesting list of examples! When you talk about some one like Tiger Woods, or Mozart for that matter, I think we are looking an innate quality, something they were born with, that gives them the ability to perform at a level far beyond others. So, I’m not really sure what to take from their experience that can be generalized to traders other than the right coaching and long hours of practice develops the skills through which talent is projected. I think that with those two elements, the right coaching and long hours of practice, most of us can make a very respectable income trading without having to rise to the prominence of someone like Tiger – even though being a star might be fun. It amazes me how many experienced traders give beginners the advice that they have to reinvent the wheel. As traders, we all start using someone else’s edge, even if it is just EMA or MACD (this was once someone’s edge, just like candlestick charts were). The lucky ones of us get some further guidance and a mentor shows us how to organize the information the market is giving us into to something meaningful. If you start with trading someone else’s edge, at first you don’t really understand why it works. If you stick with it, you’ll learn what the market is telling you through the lens of the system. After you spend more time in front of the charts, you’ll begin to see other patterns as well. Then you can incorporate them or develop them into your unique edge. While you are gaining the knowledge that allows you to develop your edge, trading someone else’s successful system gives you the advantage of making some money (that is the goal after all), and avoiding some of the psychological trauma of blowing through a number of accounts. And as far as trading psychology goes, it’s nice to avoid trauma – much less repair work to do. Now if you want to use trading primarily as a challenging exercise in self-development, yes, please, reinvent the wheel. Okay, I know I’m being snarky. Sorry. But there isn’t just one way to become successful.

Sorry, Zdo. I'll move over to the other thread.

Castle: You make an interesting point about “the conditioning and repetition of seeing your edge pay out”. In some ways, it is like developing faith in your system (edge). Lack of faith (or confidence, if you like that word better) seems to be a big issue for many traders and can result in hesitating to get in, then once in a trade, getting out too soon. For those whose systems have a high win/loss ratio, developing faith can be relatively easy. For those with potentially profitable systems, but with win/loss ratios closer to 50-50, faith, or acceptance, may be a hard won commodity. Could you say more about “….from that point on….the psychology started to fall into place on its own”? Thanks. Rande: Sorry, I wasn’t clear about who/what you are disagreeing with. Could you say more? You make an interesting point when you say the results in your trading account are a reflection of “your competency in the current organization of the self that you are trading”. I would have to agree if we start from the assumption that the trader in question really has an edge and that we are looking at his/her results over a period of time. However, until a trader has a reliable edge, sorting out what is lack of technical skill from what is psychological issue can be messy. For example, a trader saying, “I’m never going to be successful at this” is an accurate statement when he doesn’t have an edge and may say very little about his psychology. Okay, I’ll grant you that was an extreme example, but I’m sure you get my drift. In an earlier post, you said: “Few people come into trading equipped from a mindself point of view to be consistent traders. It has to be learned…” If I understand you correctly, I think this is very true. Many of the strategies we use to be successful in other arenas, business and personal, are irrelevant in dealing with the market. For example, the market doesn’t care how charming you are. And the market is incredibly ambiguous thus giving us a wonderful Rorschach on which we can project any and all of our psychological glitches. Throw in the threat of loss and we have a very tough environment indeed. Nevertheless, some survive and become successful traders. Maybe we could talk about the psychological traits, strategies, hardiness, etc., that allow some traders to be come winners. What do you think? Also, please tell me what you mean by “mindself”?