Rande Howell

That 15 second technique is based on practicing the breathing style and the progressive relaxation until it can be produced habitually. Then he uses an exposure technique to train the brain to react to the learning. You gotta do the breathing and relaxation work first before you train them as a conditioned response. Many of us who teach this stuff have found that most folks won't do the required rote training and then expect the conditioning to kick in without effort. My protocol is to have people training to the breathing and SafePlace (relaxation) for at least two weeks before we get to conditioning the response. I can imagine that Benson got pretty frustrated with the lack of rigor that people brought to the work. And without the rigor the learning opportunity is lost and his work is marginalized. I'd probably have done the same thing. Rande Howell

StevenSJC I really like Jon Kabat-Zinn's work. It comes out of mindfulness (observation of thought and belief) as opposed to mantra or visually driven meditation styles. It is also built to work with western scientific thought. Add to this is Herbert Benson's relaxation response work. Here, you would be introduced to training the brain to trigger to relaxation rather than stress. Both are reseachers from Harvard. The problem I have found with generalized meditation and mindfulness training is that traders have a hard time transferring the skills in the meditation room to the trading room -- particularly when they become stressed. It's very common for a trader who has good meditation and breath training to have to go through the breath, relaxation, and inoculation training so that the skills become acclimated to the trading environment. Only then do they get access to working with their state of mind. The next step is to add a module of stress inoculation to create a conditioned response to stressors as they trigger specific for trading. Moderated Message: Moderator: Removed promotional service mention . But it is geared to emotionally regulate specific moments in trading (pulling the trigger, etc) that traders need to learn how to do. Check out the top two guys - there's a good chance that this will go a long ways to solving your problem. Hope this helps. Good luck in your evolution as a trader. Rande Howell

In the world according to Kiwi, Rande appears about at the level of a used car salesman. In actuality I am a licensed therapist in the state of NC in addition to my peak performance work. As a therapist I specialized in the emotional regulation of anger, fear, and impulse in various populations including violent prisoners in prison, court ordered youth, anxiety disorders over a number of populations. In addition to that I also do pro bono work in my office for folks who can't afford a person like me. Fortunately, I do not live in the world of your opinion. Mine is a very different world where I see myself serving others. Most people will read my book somewhere between 2 and 5 times and quote it to me and thank me for helping them to understand what is actually going on in their mind and emotions. Anyone who believes that a book can change neurally hardwired beliefs that have been embedded into the brain during developmental moments clearly does not understand how human beings evolve into the beings they become. Having worked with change technologies and difficult populations for decades, I have a fairly well grounded idea of what works. Anyone who has gone to a seminar and walked away with a "seminar high" has experienced something similar. The high is a neural pattern has been established and degrades in a few short days or weeks. Then it is back to the old pattern. Books provide head knowledge. Which is good. But changing the habits of the heart requires far more than the knowledge contained in a book. Apparently this is something you believe as possible. When I began reading about Emotional Intelligence and knew this work was game changing, I just didn't read books. I studied under one of the masters of the field. And, yes, I paid good money for that. That cut my learning curve and allowed me to become productive to the people I serve much faster than if I just bumbled along trying to pick up a thing or two over time. If you talked with people I've actually worked with, I believe you would come away with a very different view of my work and its impact. You're very misinformed. Actually it is based on the fundamental human need for connection and cherishment in the context of safety. If a developing human does not get these needs met, their brain organizes them to avoid the pain of that sense of woundedness. Over the years I have developed various methodologies to change the core beliefs that result from such wounding. They have worked with really tough populations and work incredibly well with traders. I know of no one who actually has experienced my work that would call it light weight. Kiwi, your opinions are baffling to me,and, truth is, I have sympathy for you. The archetypal work is fundamental to peak performance. Most traders trade from a position of fear, or what in archetypal terms is called Orphan. In Emotional Intelligence this is called the limbic brain and in particular the amydala. It is in the regulatlion of the fear housed in the limbic system that compassion is then used to actually change the hard wired core belief. In archetypal language that is called the Nurturer. Truth is that most traders beat themselves up when they fail. This has never worked. Simply drives the fear deeper. Compassion is what transfroms the belief system that trades. I either use emotional memory creation or the archetypal language to get at and develop inherent strengths within the self. The emotional memory creation comes out of the time when I debriefed trauma victims for police detectives. They were creating false memories in their debriefings with the victims which got shot up in court. I became the expert witness who could debrief abused children because my methodologies didn't implant memory into the kid's mind. So, Kiwi, you are probably not going to meet to many therapists with the depth of experience I come from. But people with closed opinions don't seek nor acknowledge information that is contrary to their belief. They only look for confirmation of their belief. This is called cognitive dissonance. And until people break out of the prison of their comfort zone, they blame others for what eventually they will have to take responsibilty for. This takes inward courage. What is true, Kiwi, is that my work requires abstract thinking rather than literal thinking. One is not better than the other. They are simply different. And built for different kinds of people. My guess is that you are a nuts and bolts kind of guy and if thinking falls outside of those parameters, it is not a good way of teaching for you. Fortunately for me your judgments are not the ones that I found in New York at Traders Expo. I'll live in that world. Good luck to you. Rande Howell

A good place to start is with Herbert Benson's work. He's the guy that created the "Relaxation Response". He extraptulated the technology behind Yogi's ability to manage body and mind from the religion. To start, I encourage guided meditations until you get the hang of it. I also like Zen approaches where you become witness to thought. Cabot-Zinn is another well known researcher who works with mindfulness as a form of meditation. Rande Howell

ScottB I work with the organization of the self that the trader brings to the trade, not the trade itself. It is the mindset that a trader brings to the uncertainty of trading that opens or closes the possibility and probability of success or failure. As a trader moves from a fear based mindset that engages uncertainty and moves to a disciplined and impartial mindset that engages uncertainty, he is more relaxed and calm -- and trades far more effectively. It is how you stated it "I have been trading a very long time and my trading improved dramatically as I became comfortable with my setups and that came from screen time.". Essentially, your state of mind moved from fear based to a different state of mind beyond fear -- something you call comfortable. I figure a trader is going to put in a minimum of 5K screen hours to achieve this, all other things being equal. Unfortunately, somewhere between 85-95% of traders lose money for long periods of time. This is the same number that fail at starting a business and fail at losing weight permanently. Until that belief system changes the numbers stay consistent. This is the psychological edge top performers cultivate from atheletes to busness executives to top salesmen. They keep working with their mind. It is the mind that uses the tools of the trade. And that state of mind is built. Add to this that 80% of our population actively medicates anxiety either by legal or illegal methods and you can begin to see how trading is not the problem -- it is the lack of skills and tools that allows them to move beyond the prison of their comfort zone. Most of folks simply avoid this problem, in trading your trading account want let you. If you can do this on your own and have your capital last longer than your learning curve, more power to you. Hang around trading long enough and you will see this this kind of thinking has a cost to it also. Rande Howell

If you accept the assumption that trading is a mirror into how effective your beliefs are (the the barometer is your trading account), then your psychology is the organization of those beliefs. And it is those beliefs that do your trading. If you can adapt those beliefs so that you produce successful trading, great. The problem is that the vast majority of traders do not do this one fundamental thing. You can take the long way to adaptation of those beliefs, or you can find a mentor to shorten the learning curve. It's your choice. I consistently see traders move from one level of trading competency to a higher level in 3 months. And they view the money they have willingly spent with me as an investment into their future. You are going to invest money either through the school of hard knocks or you may decide to shorten the learning curve. If you cut to the chase, the trading account will speak about whether you need help or not. One other thing. My early work involved emotional regulation of anger, fear, and impulse with populations that included violent prisoners, fear based populations, trauma victims, and impulse disorders. I have found these very skills to be very useful in working with traders. Why? Because the vast majority of traders trade from fear, anger, or impulse. That's just the human condition. Rande Howell

For better or worst, your journey is in keeping with the vast majority of traders learning how to trade. They develop the methodology edge first, believing that is the Holy Grail. Only after they experience failure and pain from ignoring the psychological component of trading, do they open themselves to psychologcial development. Then they discover that they have always been the Holy Grail -- but like a diamond in the rought -- it has to be developed. Best, as you point out, would be both simultaneously. But, I'm not holding my breath for traders to have this AHA! moment before they have blown up an account or two. That would require an emotionally literate human being. Most of us have to learn our emotional literacy the hard way.

Good point SIUYA. Some of the most powerful moments in my life have been gifts to me, freely given. Same with learning trading. In noodling down into my answer, it's probably more about the effort it takes to change belief pattern. Most traders take the long route to change -- 2-10 years -- to learn how to integrate platform, methodology, and psychology. And the psychology seems to be the one that is most resistent to outside intervention. Like other normal human beings, traders keep looking outside themselves to place responsibility. It takes a change in awareness to accept accountability. Most successful traders don't go to trade shows. They have built their trading plan and don't find much of interest there. It's the ones still seeking an answer that works that show up. Rande Howell

This is an interesting question. WC Fields said many years ago, "There is a sucker born every minute and two to take him." I do not hold that the vast majority of offers (from vendors of various stuff, including me) are intentially meant to deceive and entrap. I hold that many of us simply fall into our own deceptive patterns and get suckered into promises that exist outside of the self. Get rich schemes have been around since Biblical times. It is us, each one of us, that has to become wise consumers of the offers that come. Nothing is going to be free. And if it is free, you probably don't want it. The truth is that methodology is a key element in the success of a trader. And it needs to be learned. Most learn by having a teacher teach them -- I certainly do. But buyer beware. Without development of the psychology to trade that methodology, you sucker punch yourself. I'll give you a position that is dear to me. In my book, I tell people up front that the book is not the cure to their problems. No book will ever be that. A book delivers head knowledge, that's it. Changing beliefs requires heart knowledge and an enormous emotional investment to change the neurology of belief. Yet I declare this up front, and many declare me out to rip them off. For being honest with them about the process of changing belief systems in the brain. For some reason, they believe that heart knowledge is going to occur by osmosis to them. That's crazy too. I have learned to tread carefully at Traders Expo. There are many that are comfortable in taking you. I had a broker actually tell me that he prefered the churn of an inexperienced trader engulfed by revenge trading. It was just money to him. This was incomprehesible to my sensibilies. I have also met methodology educators who are deeply concerned about the welfare of their clients. They want to succeed and turn a profit in the process. Intially I could not discern the different. It was all business to me. As I came to my senses, I choose like minded people who want to serve. It is up to you to decide the intention of a supplier of an offer. Moving forward in the evolution of yourself as a trader requires this discernment. What people don't realize in trading is that a person's psyhcology can not be avoided. Methodology teachers are not built to teach psychology. But there are many naive people who want to be lead to the promised land without having to work. Rande Howell

I will add. Most traders lose before they trade. They approach their trading day from a mindset of viewing uncertainty through the eyes of fear. Until this aspect of the psychology of the trader is transformed, he will continue to invent a reality in which he loses money. Most traders trade NOT TO LOSE out of their personal histories, rather than develop the mindset that MM talks about above. Good traders acknowledge that 80% percept of trading happens between the ears. Until you commit yourself to changing the belief structure that trades, you are deceiving yourself. And your trading account does not buy into your perception. The good news is that your belief system can be developed. The bad news is that you really do have to invest the emotional labor (and often the financial also) to make this change happen. No on wants to look into the mirror and discover that they are looking at their worst enemy. Potentially, with work, it is your best friend though. Rande Howell

The major distinction here is that "the person" you refer to is a hobbiest trader. He is not a professional trader. As a hobby, the person is not invested as a professional trader is. This is a huge difference. As a hobbiest trader, he is not fully committed. This is a problem that the high level mythodology trainers I work with have with their clients. Until the committment is there, there is wiggle room in their commitment to trading and the personal development required of such a committment. So they are not fully committed. The traders I work with are different than the scenero you present. They are attempting to build a new life for themselves and their families that has finanical and personal freedom as the goals of trading. Hanging on to a job is not a sticking point. Some hedge funds operate under somewhat similar circumstances are you suggest. So it is possible. The problem would be that, if the system is so simple that it simply requires monitoring throughtout the day, I suspect that you would have a turn over problem. As he gains experience,your trader too would probably aspire to finanical and personal freedom. Call it greed or self determination. That would depend on what the trading of the trader served. As a trader evolves, he moves beyond money as a validation of self and begins to embrace it as a tool. Rande Howell

This is a great topic for focus. I'm going to answer here, but I am also going to start a new thread on it also. The first problem is that trading is in many ways is a very unnatural environment for the brain to negotiate. The brain is constantly attempting to produce certainty in a world that is uncertain in its nature. This bias toward certainty closes down the kind of probability mindset that trading demands. What that looks like in trading is trying to predict what the market will do rather than take avantage of what the market is willing to give you. And the trader experiences fear of loss or exhileration of winning rather than the ebb and flow of probability. The second piece of this problem is that uncertainty becomes fused to worry and fear. Uncertainty then becomes synonomous with worry and fear. This is a particular wiring that has to be de-constructed and rebuilt so that uncertainty can be dealt with from more empowered emotions and states of mind. It's not going to change just because you say so though. Changing neurally hardwired beliefs is not easy, just ask any dieter or recovering alchoholic. To our ancestors, uncertainty was a bad thing. And our brain evolved to jump to conclusions because any explanation was better than staying in the confusion that uncertainty can cause. To the ancient brain any explanation is better than confusion. This wiring of perception is downright dangerous in trading. The second part is that in facing your psychological demons, we have a bias to look outside the self to assign blame and responsibility. I actually have traders put a mirror near their screens so they can see themselves and hold themselves responsible for the mindset that is being reflected back at them. At the core of poor performance (assuming competency in methodology) are self limiting beliefs rooted in a sense of inadequacy (not good enough), a sense of not mattering (must win to prove myself), a sense of not being worthy (having to prove your value as human by your performance), and of powerlessness. The value of a human being becomes externally validated (trading performance) rather than a reflection of his current skill level. Skills is something that can be improved and mistakes show you where you need to improve -- rather than being a reflection of the self. But it is both biologically and psychlogically easier to deceive ourselves and project blame and responsibility to the outside world. We even develop personas, handles, and other cover ups to mask our deepest fears rather than confront them. The problem is that if they stay hidden, they will continue to sabotage your trading and trading account. When you are experiencing a fear of loss, a fear of pulling the trigger, a fear of not being right (perfectionism), a fear of loss while in a trade, or are beating yourself up after a loss -- you are experiencing the deeper fear based beliefs outlined above. Your brain's adaptation to them has produced a familiar pattern of belief that has hijacked your thinking. Trading becomes a mirror to the deepest sense of self. But you do have to develop the courage to confront the inner garbage that has taken up residence in your belief system and rigorously change your beliefs about self. Traders can take many years wandering around in the wilderness before they really begin looking at themselves rigorously and realizing that it is their beliefs that are trading. This is when they come to the motivation to re-invent their beliefs. Most traders come to develop a deeper sense of their spiritulality to do this. This is where you move from a sense of self that uses external validation to determine their value (cars, houses, etc) to sense of self that is grounded in a sense of worth beyond their understanding and found inwardly. Rande Howell

Being that I have a book and offer programs for training the brain/mind for trading, I certainly in favor of education. The point I'm trying to make is that understanding our biology's influence (and how to work with it) on pattern and mind moves change from short term to long term more effectively. I know people who traded for 10 years with good head knowledge of their methodology but didn't make much progress until they really started changing belief system. I know trader who, in 2 years, were strongly profitable because they had the wisdom to know that body and mind had to be trained and developed from an emotional point of view. Rande Howell

"Why do these books, coaches, or seminars have to be the end all be all ? Why can't they simply be one small piece of the puzzle? Why you make some valid points, you also act like a trader can't find any value from any of these? In the end, you success will not hinge on any of them, but they can help, sometimes a lot. It took me 3 years of trading before I was really comfortable and making some decent money, and that was before I had another real rough patch where I learned some hard lessons" _______________________________________________________________________ I appreciate the concerns you bring up here. Most people, including trader coaches working with the mind, miss how challenging it is to change biological pattern in the brain that creates the way we interpret the world. Traders and many others are seduced by quick fix offers over and over again. They come away from workshops and courses with a seminar high that lasts for a few days to a few weeks. Then the pattern is back again. It erodes the new learning bit by bit until you are back where you start. The key you need to grasp about human development is that your brain is adapted to the biases, beliefs, and circumstance of your family of origin and community. This is where you begin. As long as you hold others responsible for your beliefs and performances, you are a pawn in a struggle that you have not comprehension of. The moment you wake up and realize that you are the one creating your world, life offers you a door to a new way of being in the world. Over the years, I see little evidence that long lasting change is going to occur because you take a course or learn a technique. Learning occurs when brain and pattern are changed at an organizational level. Head knowledge has little to do with it. It is the habits ofthe heart that has to be addressed. This is where change occurs. Most traders I work with have been trading for years and have toured the circuit of gurus from methodology to psychology. Until you decide that paving over problems is only a short term solution and embrace the need to de-construct and re-organize the memory circuits of your self limiting beliefs, they will re-assert themselves. I came to this conclusion while working with very challenging populations including violent prisoners, domestic violence, and child abuse. The same principles that guided self limiting beliefs, behaviors, and the creation of their lives from these populations are the exact same principles that guide develop across all human development of potential. There's was just much more extreme that normal populations that traders like to think they are part of. Change requires both a motivated student and a skilled mentor. You can take the long route of the path of hard knocks and you get there sooner or later if you are a really good student. That learning curve has as cost as you mentioned. Finding good mentors is an endeavor within itself that also has a cost. Pay now or later, but you will pay if you plan to develop your potential. Personally when I have decided to learn something, I invest much energy into finding a competent teacher. This requires discernment, rather than believing the marketing hype of the teacher. This is why I offer free consults. No matter what you do, if you are not changing belief at the biological level, you are only producing temporary change. Long term change requires emotional labor. Which, by the way, I see few traders willing to invest. It is not head knowledge that produces change. It is the heart of the trader that needs to change. Rande Howell

Mindfulness is a tool that, with breathing and relaxation, allows you to slow the thinking process down in your brain. As you slow the thought streams down, they no longer pass you without your awareness or as a blur. In mindfulness you develop an observer of the thoughts and recognize that you and your thoughts are not the same. There is a part of you watching the thoughts arise, have a life, and disappear. In trading, for example, it is really helpful to separate your sense of identity from fear based thinking. You don't have to fuse with the fear and get carried away by it. Then, taking the next step, mindfulness can be used to direct attention to other parts of the mind where you might have parked your discipline, patience, impartiality, and courage. In applied mindfulness, your attention is volitionally focused on these elements. Impartiality is a key element to successful trading and it is available to all who can calm mind and direct attention. Applied mindfulness. You develop influence over the kinds of thinking and emotions that occur in your state of mind. It is no longer free floating and accidential what state of mind you are in. To make mindfulness practical, you must get a handle on the physical arousal of emotions first. That where breathing and relaxation training become very useful. Rande Howell

Great question. Your premise is what Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) and Rational Emotive Therapy (RET) is based on. And I was a practitioner of the use of rational argument to rebut negative thoughts until I did Steven Stosney's training. He is one of the fathers of Emotional Intellience (EI). That's where I came to understand that thought follows emotion. The exact opposite of CBT. And cognition as a combination of belief (wired into organic substrate of brain) and thought ( a behavior that neurons do) came to be the focus of my work. Fundamentally, rational (from an EI perspective) is an emotional state that, under rationalistic tradition, believes it is outside of of emotion and that humans being are rational beings. From my perspective and the neuro science of economics and markets -- nothing could be further from the truth. Rationalization is even used to continue self destructive behaviors, where you convince yourself that you are being rational. If you want to change core beliefs that trigger into self limiting emotional patterns, compassion is the emotional state that changes the belief at the organic level., while rational changes at a superficial level. Rational thinking, or impartiality as I call it, is an immensely important emotional state to be able to call up when trading. First you have to regulate fear. Fear will hijack rational in a heart beat. Compassion is the antidote to fear, not rational thought. Rational helps us to develop what I call an observer of our thoughts -- but it is never independent. Once illusion has been exposed, the belief and emotional structure still has to be deconstructed and rebuilt. The limbic brain (or emotional brain) simply is not capable of rational thought and will hijack the rational mind. Rational is important. But it has its place. It does not sit at the head of the table. And in trading, it is the part you want to be evaluating set ups. But some sort of fear will be trying to crept into the trading committee of your mind. Better be prepared to have the courage to confront what rational discovers. And better have compassion for the child like fear that hijacks rational thought. Getting the limbic brain to distinguish between uncertainty and fear requires emotional regulation and a deliberate methodology for changing core beliefs about the self. They are the ones doing your trading. Rande Howell URL Removed by Moderator

Wow!! A true type A. I have found that most type A's and most Americans find it difficult to establish a meditation practice for the exact same reasons you describe so well. Habitual prolonged stress is a problem on many levels. From health to cognitive performance to relationships. I figure you're onto that. A possible solution. If you look at the biology of meditation, you discover that it is actually brain activity at a particular frequency that produces the meditative state. There are various ways to arrive at these "trance states" -- these absorptive states of mind. I have found that most people respond much better to guided meditations than to a sustained meditative practice. Getting to that absorptive state of mind happens all the time. When you get in your car and drive. Notice that you lose sense of time. That is evidence of an absorptive state of mind called "driving meditation or trance". Getting in the car and attuning to driving is what inducts you into this state. Many people discover that their best ideas happen here. The same with showers. I ask people to consider guided meditations as a kind of meditation on steriods. I use them to teach people how to calm down, to step back, observe thought, and to direct thought. Real skill building kinds of things. Over time my hope is that people will develop the regular skill of meditation. Guided meditation is a great introduction and require less than 30 minutes. Once you get the biological system calmed down, you still have to deal with your understanding of work (meaning as a way to generate worth) that is fused with highly aroused emotional states you spoke of. Most folks equate work with busyness (getting things done). Another way of percieving work is the coordination of action. This opens up a very different possibility in running businesses. Thanks for your comments. They were really interesting to me. Rande Howell

I use a metaphor for the trader's mind. I invite people to see it as a committee composed of various members who have their own agendas. If we stay mindless of the forces at work in our mind, then we stay ignorant of an essential skillset to be able to build a psychology of self that experiences a deeper sense of peace and worth in the world we live. Some of the fear based aspects of the self will attempt to limit the possibility you are. Others need awakening so that the trading committee of the mind can change and the direction that the person takes in his life becomes more fruitful. Mother Theresa was once asked why she practiced kindness so diligently. She responded by saying that a Hitler also lived within her. And she needed to keep that part of herself in check. Maybe not on as a dramatic of a scale, but we all have a war going on with the self. It is recognizing that it is our humanness that is at the center of this conflict. It is a struggle that you have to honor and learn from -- or it will diminish what you bring forth into the world. Trading creates a razor's edge in understanding the nature of this struggle. There is a spiritual component to trading that opens us to embracing humbleness and changing the meaning that money has for the self. If money and trading success is the test that determines you sense of worth, it will be a long ride. If money becomes a tool for something greater than the self, a whole new person can begin to emerge. Rande Howell URL Removed by Moderator

This is true. At its roots is part biology and part psychology. It takes real courage to look into the mirror and own that you are responsible for the life you are creating. It is much easier for the emotional brain to place blame outside of the self for the discomfort it experiences. And in our evolutionary past, this was a good strategy. There are no longer lions, tigers, and bears that staulk us. It is our own inner demons that we have to face. It is much easier to empower the self short term by placing blame outside of the self. Emotions are all short term driven. And men, in particular, have pushed their emotional nature aside in our socialization. It comes back to haunt us though. I see this in particular when people read my book and hit the as a committee composed of a number parts of the self. Lots of guys just can't get past this. And they say lots of crazy stuff. They keep looking for anwsers that are fixes. People have been doing this for lifetimes. Didn't work then, rarely works now -- but they insist. If they want to stay stuck in the prison of their comfort zone, no one can stop them until they have found the motivation to change. Often trading forces the issue. Rande Howell URL Removed by Moderator

From my experience meditation works on several levels with traders. First, in breath work, meditation really helps in the emotional regulation of worry and fear. Since both these emotional states require holding of the breath and shallow breathing to maintain the emotion. This calming effect allows the trader to think from a much better state of mind than worry. Second, particularly Zen styles where the focus is on mindfulness, allow the trader to become aware of the going and coming of thought without fusing to the thought streams. By recognizing that you and your thoughts are not the same, a whole new way of looking at trading can emerge. The third aspect is what I call applied mindfulness. Here you are not just observing thought, you are also volutionally choosing to focus attention on empowered parts of the self (discipline, patience, impartiality, and courage) rather than letting the attention drift to where ever it wants to go. Rande Howell

I'm not really sure what you are saying or asking here. Can you help me understand a little better? Rande Howell

What I like about trading for the development of our humanness is that it leaves you little choice about confronting the self. This opens us to an enormous possibility of growth. Rande Howell

I'm a Martin Heidegger (sorry about that spelling) fan rather than Sartre (far too depressing a way to find freedom for me). I hold that we are creating our realities in the moment of our action. Becoming aware of the forces that are "ready to hand" allows us to move beyond them and into deeper potential. This sense of being in time is what gives rise to trading in the zone. Our unobserved mindset that guides our trading (the invisible hand in the example I use in the post) is the point here. She is perfectly capable of better performances. But she has to become aware of the history she was born into and taken over by before she can start building a new future. Rande Howell

Thank you for your observation. Well spoken. The necessity of learning to wake up and live in an organization of the self that trades well... or lives well... is what I like about the situation that traders find themselves in. In other areas of life, it can be avoided for a lifetime. But trading provides us with a mirror, and your trading account shows you where to cut. Gotta cut dead wood, and know where to cut, to trade successfully. Rande Howell