Rande Howell

"You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. And you can't even lead a mule to the water." Old Southern saying I see no reason to engage someone whose biases are set in concrete. It's kinda like trying to have a constuctive conversation between a staunch Republican and a liberal Democrat or a pro-lifer with a choice person. It's not a place to invest your energy. I do however wish you well. Rande Howell

I encourage readers of this forum go back and re-read the article I posted that has prompted this discourse. When you read it, really notice what I am saying about beliefs and feeling and their impact on perception and the creation of a particular reality. Particularly the way they co-mingle and produce a certainty of belief in what ever direction that the emotion is taking them THAT IS NON-NEGOTIABLE. Then read, from these eyes, this thread. It is really fascinating. What I notice is that the direction of the discourse is not about observing the impact beliefs and the feeling element of an emotion has on our trading or our lives. No, this discourse is about being fused to beliefs and feelings that take us for a ride without our ever really knowing it -- so consumed by the fire of the emotion. Now apply that to trading. Rande Howell

These are thoughtful observations and question. If you have the better mousetrap that can teach a struggling trader to turn the corner on his trading, I hope they all knock on your door. steve46 (as I remember it) assumed that just about a trader could trade successfully if he were prepared properly. A successful trader himself (by his assertion), he took that competency to the next level by beginning to train other traders. He also (again if I remember correctly) was highly selective in which traders he would work with. My memory is also that he has experienced difficulty in translating his skill sets to other traders. If he is reading this, I hope he will clarify. So it wasn't the external rules of discipline that was the problem. It was the internal sense of calm authority the trader entered the trading environment that was the problem. I hope he is listening, because I would love to hear of his experience. I don't really see that many damaged people (beyond normal people) trying to learn to become successful traders. I see traders who do not know how to manage emotions and have mindsets that have never been trained to deal with uncertainty. The powerful question you ask about when to quit I don't believe has an absolute answer. From what I've seen, it's a question that a trader has to struggle with. Mostly, I find, that it boils down to a person's stubborness in resisting change. If he is not willing to change, then there is no reason to trade. Rande Howell

Mitsubishi This answer is not for you. It is for people who actually seek to learn, rather than defiantly defend their position (or to blow off steam). It is a good question. Understanding how the mind operates in pressure situations (and changing it) is something that actually has to be studied and understood by stepping back from it. The psychological dynamics involved in the dance of trading is not sacred to the people who trade. It is observable and falls into categories. What you are actually studying is how a mind, with its inherent biases and adaptations, engages uncertainty. It is in this dance that the beliefs that the trader holds about him or herself in the world and their capacity to engage uncertainty are revealed. It is these beliefs, called your mindset, that "causes" the trader to see and interpret market data in the ways they do -- and they act on them. These beliefs and emotion become embedded. That is what trades. Laying out a roadmap for the way a trader emotionally interacts with the market is pretty straight forward really. For people who are trained (not just psychology types) to look for the elements of the process of performance, the various markers are not mysterous. I find very few traders can do this for themselves. And this assertion is backed up by the methodology teachers I work with. Trainers (really good ones who train their methodology as they trade in live rooms) report to me that they can train a person in the methodology to where the trader should be competent to trade -- but isn't. The problem is the mindset that the trader brings to the trade. The trainers are frustrated and baffled by why their students keep losing. They know it is in the way the mind perceives uncertainty and risk. Until that changes, the trader continues in the old self limiting ways. As long as the trader seeks to find discipline externally rather than internally, they lose the opportunity to change their self limiting ways. This is what the methodology teachers understand. They do not have a problem with my not trading. They have a problem with teaching their students how to manage their psychology of risk and uncertainty. And they have figured out that they can't teach this part of trading. They may have had an attitude such as yours at one time, but hundreds and thousands of traders later, they have become convinced that training a trader's psychology to trade is, in fact, very different than teaching a process that allows a trader to have an edge in trading. Until mind and method are on the same page, the trader still has one hand tied behind his back. I encourage traders to convince themselves of this by their performances and not by what I or what you say. Let it be evidenced based. You can believe your deceptions, but your trading account does not care about the rightousness of your beliefs. Only that they are effective. Usually that takes many thousands of dollars of losses for them to come a new conclusion. It's a trader's money. Your trading account will tell you if your beliefs that you bring to trading are effective or not. Look there and you will find grounding to support or question the effectiveness of your beliefs. This is where biases are seperated from grounded assessments of performance. Personally I find very few traders care whether I trade or not. They are concerned if I can help them manage the emotions and mindset that they bring to trading. And may your trading be fruitful. And may you learn from it. Rande Howell

for those of you who are google research challenged. LPC means licensed professional counselor.

As you suggest, please note that this is a trader psychology forum -- dealing with the emotional and mental aspects experienced in trading. And that is why I'm here. MM, I'm actually a LPC. In the trading world the term psychologist gets pretty slurred. That means I have a state approved license to practice therapy and carry insurance for that purpose. I have a performance based approach, though I find that, with most traders, there are self limiting beliefs embedded into our perception that need to be reconstructed and redeveloped to build the kind of mind that functions well in the trading environment.

Fortunately (for me) what you say is not evidence based. I'm not sure what you mean that some of the people who took the trader psychology course "ran away". I do know that several did not see the value in participating in the forums. If that's "running away", then I believe they chose wisely. One of them is a trader moving from trading his own money to the confidence acquired through performance of trading others money. All the opinions aside. Produce grounded assessments, rather than opinions and biases and I'm interesting in engaging with you. One of my favorites in this regard is SUIJA. He's a professional trader. Disagrees with me often -- has even called me out. The difference is that he grounded his assessments in facts not unexamined opinions. Otherwise the conversation is simply not useful to the growth possibilities in a person's trading. zdo is an interesting guy to be in conversation with. I often have to read his stuff a number of times and get clarification from him to make sure he and I are tracking with one another. He appears to think differently that many traders, but he's a valuable part of the trading environment. Difficult to understand. Sometimes. I do acknowledge that this article is more academic that I usually write. But for people who have the eyes and ears to listen, they got alot. I do get alot of mail thank me for my book and articles. So, I guess that's in the eye of the beholder. Usually they have read a number of my articles. SFO magazine is also publishing one in their June issue this year. We'll see what kind of feedback they get. That would provide a level of grounded assessment that might be more helpful in gauging readability. Whether or not I provide value to traders who are experiencing problems. I don't see what fractual basis you assess from. Your opinion is not a fact. It is only an opinion. That you have biases you see through is just being human. I sure get alot of reports to the contrary. I encourage you to be rigorous in your assessments. And if you actually train traders and work with them every day, I will be happy to provide you with other methodology trainers I work with and traders who have worked with me. That would add a ground to your assessments. Good luck with your trading. Rande Howell

This is a very good illustration about what the article is directed at. The feeling of an emotion produces a certainty of belief (meaning that is embedded into the emotion) that defies examination and is resistant to change. What the numbers tell you is always influenced, in the moment of acting, by the beliefs and feelings (historical narrative) that you bring to the interpretation of those numbers. That is why people can know HOW to trade in simulation, but fail when risk becomes a partner to the uncertainty of live trading. This article is not intended for those who interpret and act from a impartial state of mind because they were lucky to be born into this circumstance. It is for traders seeking to understand why they can't act impartially when their relationship with risk becomes part the mindset that sees the numbers -- and do something about it. Rande Howell

Ha! Ha! Very funny. More Marin Heidegger meets neurobiology of emotion and meaning. I studied under one of his students in the 80's. Getting meaning planted into biology came later. You know, I really must find out what she teaches. Certainly the emphasis on biology is there. I get that about Van also. There it's the emphasis on the devine. Rande

After investing significant personal and financial resources into your commitment to trading, what stops you from breaking through to successful trading? Is it your methodology? Is it your platform? Or is it the way you interact with the markets through your methodology and platform? Until you stop chasing trading success externally (believing that the right methodology, the right guru, or the next indicator “out there” will be the secret that transforms your trading) you will remain locked in a mindset that keeps trading success at a distance like a mirage in the desert. You know the potential is there, but it is never realized. Most traders stay stuck in this illusion until they have experienced significant pain that jars them into re-examining their beliefs - beliefs that stay beneath the radar of their awareness, but that torpedo the development of these traders' potential in trading. Traders avoid dealing with these hidden self-limiting beliefs because they are uncomfortable to acknowledge. After a number of years wandering in the desert of their denial, vigorously holding on to the belief that success is “out there” in the form of things, traders either (1) continue the pain of losing as a way of life, (2) get out of trading, or (3) wake up to the understanding that they need to change themselves – not the outside world. This is the nature of a self-limiting belief. The third option, that they must develop a different trading mind, opens the door to a new way of understanding the self and the world that the trader lives in. What does this world look like? Re-examining the World You Believe You Live In If beliefs are such an important part of successful trading, why don’t all traders simply examine and change the beliefs that shape their understanding of the world and of their interaction in the markets? It seems so simple, however "you can’t see what you can’t see". You, the trader, remain blind to the very self-limiting beliefs that keep you from moving to the next level. Yet these self-limiting beliefs are hidden in plain sight. You just haven’t developed the eyes to see them. Until mindful awareness is developed, the self-limiting beliefs operate in the shadows of your mind, out of sight of your capacity to change them. When mindfulness is applied to trading, a powerful new understanding takes root. All perception of reality is observer-generated. This is the assumption that forces the trader to re-examine his or her beliefs from a different perspective. In this way of understanding the world you find yourself in, you live in worlds that are created by your beliefs. There is not a world “out there”. Based on the beliefs that you bring to life and trading, your world of experience is created. Change those beliefs on a biological response level and you change the way you use your methodology and platform to engage the markets. As an example I worked with two traders who trade side by side. They share the same methodology, the same indicators, and the same platform. The difference between them is that both brought different beliefs about the management of uncertainty to their trading. One became successful while the other continued losing. They shared everything outwardly, but as they evolved as traders, they did not share the same beliefs about themselves and the beliefs they brought to trading in the markets. One had an AHA! moment and became open to the notion that all perception of reality is observer-generated. This allowed him to move from a mindset that tried to predict what the market was going to do to a mindset that became comfortable managing probabilities (and their probabilities) detached from a biologically-driven predisposition for certainty. The other trader held on, entranced by his biologically-driven need for certainty, to the notion that there was a reality “out there” full of objects that he could define rationally and therefore, could allow him to predict with relative certainty what the market was going to do next. In his perception, there was a set of rules, once discovered (read, the Holy Grail), that would produce certainty in the face of ambiguity. He was held in a mindset that was organized around a belief in the certainty of his feelings. The trader who opened himself to change stepped out of an ingrained way of seeing the world to a new way of seeing and interacting with the world that allowed him to trade from a new position, the management of chaos or the lack of certainty – of an observer-created world. An acceptance that chaos and uncertainty are simply part of the human experience of life. Although this was a difficult shift in his mindset, it also opened the door for him to manage uncertainty rather than look for certainty. Do you see the difference here? The one who stayed stuck in his old ways kept looking for the Holy Grail that would allow him to predict reality. This is where many traders stay pinned down by their blindness. They keep believing (in the face of continuing losses) that there is a world “out there” that can be defined and manipulated. Certainly the rise of rationalism and the scientific method laid down the assumptions that reality could be defined as objects “out there” for many centuries – until quantum theory blew the certainty of Newtonian physics away like smoke from an extinguished match. In the same way that rationalism and Newtonian physics breaks down at a certain moment, so does the mindset (and the beliefs creating the mindset) that you bring to trading. The order of thinking that you brought to trading worked in domains outside of trading. But when that order of thinking was applied to trading, it was no longer capable of producing effective action on a consistent basis. At that point, the assumptions of your beliefs have to be re-examined and re-invented. In trading, the art and science of trading is more akin to the uncertainty of Heisenberg and the "observer-created" world of Schrödinger than to objective reality. (So much for an ordered world to believe in!) Re-examining Emotion and Thought Have you ever heard the expression: “You must leave your emotions at the door when you trade.”? It seems like common sense. Bringing emotions to trading is risky business. But not bringing emotions to trading is simply not possible. Without emotions, there is no thinking (or life for that matter). Even what most traders aspire to trade from (dispassion or impartiality) is, in actuality, an emotional state that leads to a particular kind of thinking that is highly effective for trading success. The neo-cortex in humans grew out of other older brain systems that are emotional in nature. Because of this, thinking and emotion are inexorably linked. All thinking is emotional-state-dependent. Once a trader wakes up to this highly validated assumption from neuro-biology, emotion becomes something to manage and use to build a way of thinking (observing) that allows the possibility of effective trading. This may sound far fetched, but consider your trading and your state of mind while trading. Before the threat of real loss (risk) becomes palpable (entering the trade), the mind that you, as a trader, bring to evaluating set-ups is commonly rational. With no threat in view, the emotional state of fear is not present to influence your thinking. But as the trade warms up and confirmation is evident by your indicators or methodology, the chance of real monetary loss becomes cogent. Then it is time to find the entry point and pull the trigger. The moment is now. Suddenly the perceived uncertainty and risk becomes a disruption to the logical and impartial state of mind that guided your thinking minutes before. What is brought to the forefront of awareness is no longer management of uncertainty by a rational mind, but a mind now driven by fear. The closer the entry point, the greater the uncertainty, the more confusion, and finally fear triggers and dominates your mind’s thinking. The trade passes, and you feel relief, and later, disappointment. Then as you review your trading, you wonder what on earth possessed your ability to think rationally and act from logic. The emotional thinking shifted from rationally-based thinking to fear-based thinking. Each emotional state (rational and fear) drove the kind of thinking that was possible for you in any given moment. The assumption that emotions are in your head is dangerous to the development of a peak performance state of mind. Emotions are biological. They and your body are one and the same. And your brain and the emergent mind are rooted in that biology. Your brain/mind, by its predisposition, seeks the certainty of pattern-recognition and reacts to uncertainty as the fear of death – something to be avoided. When triggered instinctually, uncertainty is biologically interpreted as the fear of death and takes over the mind – or what can be called cognition. That is the uncertainty turned into fear-based thinking that you bring to trading. And now it colors the psychological world of your mind into thinking from a fearfully. Your capacity to trade effectively goes downhill from there. Your brain, unless you significantly redevelop it, is not built to distinguish between uncertainty and fear. And fear does not allow a probability-based mindset. It has to be trained for this new perceptual world. Belief, Feeling, Mind, and the World You Trade In Humans are born into a historical narrative, a kind of ontological soup, to which our brains adapt us. In this ontological world, you do not shop for your beliefs and decide which ones you will wear. Long before your could think or reflect, the beliefs you were born into were already internalized into the perceptual map that interprets and interacts with the world of this ontological soup – your perception. Your beliefs, as long as you stay mindless of how your brain and mind operated to work with uncertainty, are simply adaptive responses to the environment of which you are part. And you do not have beliefs – they have you. They create the world you live in and they are hidden from view. They are so familiar that they are not noticed – much like a fish does not notice the water it swims in. But then take the fish out of water and blindness is suddenly erased - and water never seemed so precious. If beliefs (that shape your perception of the world) become integrated into your emotional responses to the world around you, emotional awareness is crucial. Suddenly the emotions that arise, either denied or acknowledged, begin to force explanations to spring into your mind based on the feeling element of the emotion. This is why feeling is so important to manage as a trader. First, what is a feeling and how does it affect thinking and perception? "Feeling" is the subjective experience of an emotion. This subjective experience is also the chemistry that is coursing through your body and brain. In feeling an emotion, your brain and mind are swimming in the current of the emotion. And you (your perception) are being pulled wherever the emotion is designed (by the force of evolution into adaptive responses) to take you. The feeling does this by creating a sense of certainty based on the direction of the emotion. The chemistry of feeling has now colored your perception of the world based on the belief embedded into the emotion about your capacity to manage uncertainty. What does this look like in trading? Consider the turbulence of being in a trade, where you are no longer looking for opportunity, but are protecting your position from turning on you and creating a loss. You are in the midst of uncertainty. It is too late to back out without risk to capital – you’re in for the ride now. The trade is bouncing around on you, flirting with your stop, while you are wondering if it will refresh, get some momentum, and produce the predicted trend. The uncertainty is palpable and your anxiety is building. As the feeling of anxiety builds, all the certainty of this being a good trade evaporates. Suddenly, without trained emotional regulation, you feel certain that you are doomed if you don’t get out of the trade right now. The sense of certainty has changed directions based on the feeling element of your anxiety. Feeling, beyond its subjective experience, creates a sense of certainty in the direction that the emotion is carrying you. You are now certain that if you don’t get out of the trade quickly, you will lose the meager profit that you have RIGHT NOW. The prediction is not true in an absolute sense, but it feels true. Rational thought (based on the feeling state of impartiality) has disappeared. And what appears true is the certainty that the sky is falling, although the trade is within the rules of your trading plan. Once a feeling has taken over the direction of your thinking, no amount of evidence to the contrary will turn your thinking back from catastrophic thinking to probability-based thinking rooted in the feeling of impartiality...not, at least, until the chemistry of the feeling of doom rooted in anxiety burns out of your body and brain. This is how the feeling element of an emotion impacts trading and your perception. Ignoring the emotion, so useful in other domains of your life, is a dangerous strategy to employ in trading. Toward a Peak Performance State of Mind Emotional illiteracy is not an option if you plan to become an effective trader. And, except for the lucky few who come equipped with the genetic predisposition and social adaptation that puts them into elite trader status, the vast majority of traders who are really committed to becoming successful traders will have to deconstruct their old habits and construct a perceptual map (an organization of self) that embraces the uncertainty and risk of trading with a mind built for performance in this environment. This requires real emotional work and rigor. Amazingly, my observation is that traders resist the heavy emotional lifting to do this because of their own beliefs and feelings about uncertainty. They would much rather live in their explanations of what “should be” according to their brain’s need to bring order to markets that they outwardly acknowledge defy deterministic interpretation. Historically embedded beliefs and feelings color their perceptual world that keeps them from the very thing they want most. The deeper question is: are you willing to re-order the way you understand and act in your world for the sake of becoming successful in trading? As you embrace this question (or not), a path opens before you – simply because you ask the question. One way or another, this question is answered in your performances in trading and the impact those performances have on your trading account. And whether you explore new, more effective, ways of understanding the “self” that trades. Trading provides the path you travel. The journey is yours. Rande Howell www.tradersstateofmind.com

Since I don't keep stats on my webinar courses performances (only on my individual course), I join SIUYA in appreciating feedback. Rande Howell

It's interpretation all the way to the core. And the core is beyond human reckoning. That said, we experience the opening and closing of possibility as we move through life or trading. When we label it as bad or good, we close down an important way of observing action. From where I stand, nothing is bad or good -- it is the opening and closing of possibility that I am observing. I bring characterazation to the opening and closing of possibility based on the observer I am of the event. The moment I assess without examing, I become locked into a viewpoint that blinds me to other ways of seeing and doing -- for better or worse. A critical question, say to a loss in trading, is: What is this revealing to me about the observer of organization of possibility that I am right now? Far more powerful than an assessment of bad or good. If we come to the energy of an event without becoming attached to the labeling of it, we can work with the situation from a whole new observation point. The emotional signature of an archetypal element of self can then be awakened to work with the situation. Challenge and uncertainty are simply the fabric of life and trading. It is the mindset that we bring to the challenge that creates the probability of whatever possibility arises from the challenge. Fear simply locks you out of the potential of a moment. It constricts possibility to a learned reactivity repetoire. That simply is its biological mandate. When we manage the fear, we become open to a very different way of observing the challenges and uncertainty found in trading. And we bring forth a very different world. Rande Howell

Most traders, like many people in life, refuse to examine their lives and themselves. These people, when in trading, are faced with their self delusion and insist and maintaining it. Steve46 is quite accurate. Rande Howell

The Final Frontier: Navigating the "Mind"field of Trading Without Blowing Up “Now that I have had struggle after struggle for months and have had many losing months, I no longer wish this to go on without some tools to deal with the patience required to wait for strong setups, the courage to make the entry, the discipline to set the stop and hold it, and the impartiality to sit and wait for the trade to develop to its target. The system is still solid gold but I am holding it back.” The only difference between this trader and many other traders is that he had been successful for a while before his trading took a nose dive. That very success gave him a false sense of confidence that later came back to bite him. His mood felt “so right” that he did not question whether he was in the right mindset to trade or not. He inexplicably sabotaged his trading. This is not a trader who set out to incrementally blow up his trading account. But that is what happened anyway. What is it about the mind that creates such problems in trading? On the surface, trading looks like any other skill that a person learns and becomes proficient in. All a trader has to do is to apply the methodology he or she has learned and risk is managed. But the actual performance of trading is different. There are many traders who know how to trade when risk of loss is not involved, but fall apart when their knowledge is put to the test when trading "live". The first blunder a trader makes (and our friend from above made) is to assume that the mind and emotion are separate from one another. Many traders are advised by well-meaning teachers to “leave their emotions at the door” when they trade. Just how do you do this? You don’t. But traders have a tendency to maintain a deception where they believe they are capable of this. The belief “feels” right and is not reality tested. The “feeling” right (more about this later) and a sense of certainty clouds the mind – no matter what evidence is presented to the contrary. This is called cognitive dissonance. Then comes the collision between these ungrounded beliefs (rooted in the feeling of certainty) and their performance in trading. Beliefs, no matter how much they “feel” right, are severely tested for effectiveness in trading. Many people act from beliefs that are never put to the test until they get into trading. And then they are confronted with the observation that the beliefs that they bring to trading do not allow them to move from a certainty-based mindset to a probability-based mindset. And without a probability-based mindset, dealing with the uncertainty involved in trading will trigger fear as the emotional base for thinking while trading. The brain has deceived the trader’s mind. The brain was never designed to separate uncertainty from fear. But it is designed to produce a sense of certainty, even if the assumption is wrong, so that the brain does not have to experience the discomfort of uncertainty. To the brain, uncertainty is fused with the fear of death. This is where most traders stay stuck. Emotion and Cognition Are Linked What neuro-science has convincingly demonstrated is that emotion and thinking are embedded into one another. Your thinking (as well as your memory) is emotional- state-dependent. If you change the emotion, you also change the quality of both thinking and memory. Emotion encodes the way a memory (and your thinking) is filed. Ask a person to remember an event that was encoded while angry and they will have a difficult time even finding the memory to retrieve while in a calm state. And the person’s memory has been filed in the mind in such a way that it is accessed from that emotional state. Take an example of a couple having an argument. A woman, while angry, will have access to all the memories of everything her spouse has ever done wrong while in a state of anger. Years disappear and she can remember things that the man has long forgotten. And she piles on these memories. This is emotional-state-dependence showing up in memory retrieval and thinking. This same phenomenon occurs in a person’s mind while trading as well. When the anger subsides, a different picture emerges. No longer in anger, she does not biologically have easy access to those memories. The file of memories is encoded to be accessed while in the emotional state of anger. When not in anger, she no longer has direct access to those memories. They simply do not appear in the mind unless the emotional state that they were encoded in becomes the emotional state that determines her state of mind. This becomes a mine field, waiting to be tripped, when applied to trading. Few traders bring the understanding into their trading of how brain, emotion, mind, memory, and thinking interact with one another. And without this understanding, and new skills built upon this understanding, an important tool for building a mindset for trading is lost and they stay in a faulty belief that emotion and thinking are separate – because it “feels” right. The trader may believe that they are separate, but their trading account shows a different story. The Over Confident Trader Sabotaged Now let’s take a look at our trader friend and also take a deeper look at the mind driven by emotion. Initially the trader quoted in the vignette came to me because he was not making enough money. He was profitable, but he felt (notice the feeling state that distorts perception) that he should be doing much better. Once he had determined that he was already making between 2-3% return per month on his trading account (and this was a standard level of return that most traders would aspire toward), he was no longer motivated to build a mindset. He “felt” certain that he could do much better. In his studies he had read about what typical returns are for traders, but his mind (under the influence of the feeling of certainty) discounted this information. His trading had produced a euphoria that, in his mindlessness, had seduced him into the feeling of certainty that he should be doing better. Cutting down to his core motivations, he wanted to prove himself by his performances in trading. He wanted to be wealthy and prove to the world (and his long-dead parents) his worth. In his mindlessness, he was confusing external validation of the self by performance with the internal validation of the self of his being. This was his second blunder. The moment that a trader uses his performances in trading as an indicator of his worth as a human being, he is in trouble. This is a faulty assumption to base your beliefs about self worth upon. Trading is a not a measuring stick of your worth. Trading is a performance. It is a performance that requires a stable and trained mindset to produce success, but it is only a performance – and not a measure of a person’s worth. In this trader’s case, his early success in trading actually generated a feeling of euphoria that he mistook for confidence and worth that was based upon performance. The early success filled up a hole in his internal sense of self worth that made him “feel” triumphant. As an emotional state that is short term in nature, the “feeling” of worth that came from his performances gave him a sense of certainty about his worth. The feeling component of an emotion will do that. Feeling is the subjective experience of the emotion and it creates a sense of certainty in whatever direction the emotion is wired to take you. Fear will create a feeling of certainty in the domain of doom. Greed will create a feeling of certainty in the domain of expansive possibility. That feeling for our friend in the vignette became exuberance and euphoria. Out of that exuberance came the certainty of the belief that he was going to win, and win more. It made him “feel” like he mattered in the short term as an emotion will do. It also short circuited his capacity to think in the long term and in terms of probability. That feeling of exuberance compromised the possibility of discipline, impartiality, and patience. Before he knew it, the need to prove himself to others through trading had taken its toll on his trading account over a period of months. Humbled, and no longer deceived by greed or exuberance, he became set to look at the self limiting beliefs that his desire to prove himself by performance were rooted in. Self Limiting Beliefs Become the Stumbling Block in Your Trading Our friend’s problems in trading are rooted in his need to prove himself externally to others. He does have passion for trading – he truly loves it. But his psychology has fused performance with his being. He, like many traders, is blind to what drives his motivations while trading. The four self-limiting beliefs that need to be observed and transformed are: (1) A sense of inadequacy, (2) a sense of not mattering, (3) a sense of unworthiness, and (4) a sense of powerlessness. When you trade, what are you trying to prove? Many traders will say that they got into trading so that they could become rich. What will being rich prove? Notice that, for most, money becomes a short term fix to fix up a psychic hole rooted in “feelings” of inadequacy, not mattering, not being worthy, or powerlessness. If you trade to absolve these self limiting beliefs, the feelings will come back again to haunt you. As you learn to trade from a position of being alive in the performance and challenge of trading, a very different state of mind engages the uncertainty of trading - a state of mind that learns from mistakes and does not see losses as indicators of his or her worth...but only as indicators of his or her current level of competence to trade. And competence in trading, both psychological and methodological, can be learned. At this moment the trader is moving beyond trading from the “feeling” of self limiting beliefs and into a peak performance state of mind built for trading. Trading becomes an art and science to master – not a measure of a person’s worth or power.

It is helpful. The way I describe the link between emotional regulation and Mindfulness is that until you manage the intensity of an emotion, you never get to the door of the mind. Hence breathing and relaxation are always going to be the starting blocks for building a mindset. If the emotion reaches a critical mass, it will simply hijack your mind's capacity to think objectively. That's the link between emotional state and state of mind that has to be managed before Mindfulness can be developed as a tool. Mindfulness can be far more than a passive tool for observing mind though. It can be developed tp become active in finding and activating elements of our interior landscape that have become hidden to us. Rande Howell

Okay. A guestion for more nimble users of TL than me. How do I send a private message. And to zdo. Now that I have joined the yahoo group, how do I gain access to the discussion. I keep seeing the same page where I see there is a group, but I don't see how to get to the forum. Rande

It's amazing what happens when we begin managing the intensity do an emotion rather than pushing against it. Fundamenally we discover that there is no such thing as free floating anx iety, particularly for traders. What I like about what you did her is that you moved the process from reactive ness to mindfulness. this is the tool for self discovery. I also like your persistence in the use of the emotional technology you were exposed to. Rande Howell

Anxiety has negative attribution of the future as the thought process. In fear, thinking is seized and there is only run, hide, freeze, or submit as elements of motivation not thought. This is the distinctions I use in my work. Rande Howell

Some people keep looking for trader psychology to be a magic bullet. And if it doesn't instantly change deeply embedded self limiting (and neurally wired) beliefs, that all trader psychologists am running a racket. That if a 4 week course doesn't "cure" the problem, trader psychologists like me are selling snake oil. This is really thinking small. Closer to the truth is that traders have to wake up from their self imposed prisons before the beliefs about the self can be examined, reconstructed, and a new life is brought forth. There is no instant cure. In the 4 week course, I exposed people to a set of skills that I've developed over many years. It is the same skills and tools I teach in my individual course. The fool reads my book (or takes the short course) and asks me if it (the book) is all they need for change. As if they have not emotional lifting to do. The trader, that has been around the block and is no longer buying his or someone else's electric cool aid, reads the book and notices that I lay out the fundamentals of change and are thankful. They recognize that I'm showing how psychology is organized around the precepts of biology and that there is indeed a process that can be learned for intervention. They have usually read the book 3 or 4 times before they contact me. And they do not hold a childish belief that a book can actually change a person. They know that only they can change themselves. Books, short courses, etc can be useful, but the individual is the one that creates change -- not external vectors. Most of the time this process requires extended effort over time under the supervision of a teacher. The mess you find yourself in did not happen over night, nor will the clean up and change. Once people get over childish notions of magical change, they start asking more powerful questions that begin to open the possibility of change. They serious look for tools they can be taught how to use to forge a new way of thinking. Change comes from within. Not by outside intervention. Gail Mercer of Traders Help Desk and I were discussing this perception just the other day. She gives an evolution of a trader's journey on her website that I find compelling. And she said that most of the traders she trains have been trading for an average of 10 years. It is her belief that it takes about that long for a trader to wise up to the snake oil beings sold -- and that traders, in their foolishness, buy. She is open to traders cutting to the chase. And she recogizes that psychology is a major obstacle to success in trading. After many years of doing this, she also recognizes that it takes emotional lifting and time to change self limiting beliefs. And that is why we are exploring how to integrate psychology change work into her methodology training. If you accept that you are trading your beliefs, that beliefs have an organic base, and that you are going to rewire your belief system to change your trading performance, how do you intentionally going about doing it? I personally teach a lot of emotional regulation skills, mindfulness as an active exploring tool, and the constructs of archetypes and journey as a way of promoting change. The truth is that the markets nor life recognize my system in the same way that the markets don't recognize a methodology as a reflection of the market. It is a construct that the trader brings to the market to help them make sense out of the market. The market could care less. Yet, constructs (both in methodology and psychology) can give the practioner a leg up. Both can provide a structure for interacting with the markets. Together they produce an edge. I can feel blood boiling already all the way down here in NC. I can also feel the possibility of waking up and setting out of self imposed illusion. Now it's off to Traders Expo in Las Vegas. If you are going to be there, come to my presentation and my booth. Would love to meet you. Rande Howell

SpideySense First you're right about motivational courses having short term impact but no long term staying power to change. In this course people walked away with the 2 hour recordings of each element. This was done to faciliate their capacity to practice and too keep new emerging patterns in the fore front until they become habitual. The second problem with this course is that it really does take somewhere between 3-6 months to change a self limiting belief and create and establish a more affirming belief about your trading. I have no record of anyone taking this short course and then asking for further study, so I don't have sense of long term affect as I do on my individual course. I do know that my individual course people can come to these smaller courses for free as a refresher. This has proven helpful to maintaining a best practice mentality. This course exposes people to the skills and tools needed for transformation of beliefs leading to improved performance. What a person does with those skills determines how they impact their lives. If people come to this course as a seminar junkie, then that is what they find. If people come to this course with serious motivation for change, they find the tools and skills necessary. The observer is always creating the reality that show up as their life. First, most people who work with figure out that I am biologically driven from an emotional intellegence perspective. Until you appreciate how biology, brain, emotion, and mind inter relate, constructs such as archetypes are useless. Until you can regulate your emotions, you can't get to mind. You remain stuck in biologically based historical pattern. Jungian work has hardly been discredited. Jung's work is embedded in such domains as AA, transactional analysis, trait testing, and all "journey" oriented change systems. It is also used to write movie scripts in Hollywood. Every movie you see is sculpted archetypal journey. As a former CBT practioner, I certainly have framed the forces in the mind much more narrowly as the OCD guy you mentioned. They are good at helping to manage a situation such as OCD. However, the highly limited nature of this way of interpreting does not open the ability of inventing the journey that life can be. It can be used for controlling a problem. There was a time that psychiatrists really were a create force in change psychology. Most of the early break through thinking that created the modern domain of psychology come from these pioneers. Managed care changed all that. They do medical management now as a group. A friend of mine, both a medical director and attorney for mental health facility, once said to a fellow group of psychiatrists, "Are your bored yet?" At the bottom trading is governed by the trading account. If the belief system you bring to trading is effective for trading, given good methodology and platform, the trading account will show that growth. If the beliefs you bring to trading are self limiting, then your trading account will show that too. Focus on that. The rest of the constructs used to discuss mind and body will fall into place however it works for you. Rande Howell

Steve Since you train traders, I would be happy to put you in touch with some traders who have gone through my programming. They would be able to give you more definitive answers to your most on-target questions. One thing I've noticed is that there is a correlation between trading performance and real world performance. Rande Howell

Well, you got one. And since zdo is providing the leadership in this forum, it appears that it will go on. zdo's critism is on target. I did have to generalize problem areas. Pulling the trigger at entry point is always the biggest problem in my webinars -- so that is what I used. Of course, once they can do that, they will still have to build the psychology to manage the trade effectively once they are in it. I haven't heard from Tradewinds so I hope he shows up. Here is one comment that I received through tradersstateofmind.com: __________________________________________________________ Rande, thank you so much for introducing to me my new 4 best friends for life: Ruler, Caregiver, Warrior and Sage. They are now looking after my first steps in trading. Warmest regards

To all Since the course is over and the participants eventually migrated over to a yahoo chatroom where the conversation could stay focused on the topic of developing traders state of mind, I believe this forum has run its course. To those traders who were observing this forum as way to study trader psychology from a closer perspective, I apologize for the degradation that occurred here. My hope was that you were going to be able to be witness to traders working with materials that can become the tools for transformation. That didn't happen. The space clearly got sucked into a different kind of vortex. But you did get to see personal psychologies interact with one another. Just not about trading. It's been an interesting experiment and I thank zdo for riding herd as well as he did. Rande Howell

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SIUYA This is really a good point. When I work with a business evaluating a potential hire, I send the prospective employee to a trained testing psychologist. Part of the hiring decision is based on the assessment of current functioning. Certain working traits are looked for. And the testing, which does not produce certainty but does rachet up probabilty, does cut out a lot of guess work and bad intuitive hunches. Recently a friend of mine was hired by an insurance firm after an exhaustive series of tests and interviews that blew me away. They knew what traits they were looking for and produced a rigorous way of observing for them. When you realize the investment they make in their personnel, you can see why they wanted the odds in their favor. He has done exceptionally well. Rare talent met intentional focused training. One of the problems of psyhological thinking from the early 1900's into present time is the notion of determinism. That there is finite character traits that can be defined and do not change. I personally do not hold this. And it is one of the reasons that I like the archetypal system developed by Jung and Pearson. People change over time. Traits morph based on experience, circumstance, and maturity. They are not permanent. I would hope that, based on circumstance and maturation, that the archetypes that are in current expression within a person's personality will change. I certainly see this happening. The strength of an archetype is often never developed in a person given a certain environment. Later in a different environment, those elements of the self that were once pushed out of awareness are reawakened. Walk into an AA meeting and listen to people with 5, 10, 20 years in the program and you will see the fruit of this. I tend to look at people like a stream. It appears permanent on the surface. But it changes. And as the Buddhists say, you never step into the same stream twice. We certainly can become hardened and our attitudes become like concrete. It doesn't have to be this way. But it does take work and awareness to change. And I find the dynamics of trading to challenge the concrete the trader brings to trading. It's kinda like a jack hammer. The first order of business is to delvelop a psychology organized around the management of uncertainty rather than fear. The majority of traders (not everyone, but most) are capable of this to a degree that can produce a livable income. It requires a desire, a commitment, and education. Rande Howell