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"A few years ago, we did a workshop on what I then called echoes or emotional architectures. Near the end a trader said:
“I realized I was asking the market to validate me, to prove to me I really do know how to trade. My trading was coming from a place of psychological groveling and begging. I was asking the market to tell me “Yes, Jerko, you really know how to trade. You are so valuable and lovable because of it.”
So many traders, even very successful ones, go to the market for personal validation. It's easy to understand why -
It's a hyper-competitive game and maybe the most complicated in the world.
The score and the tangible result is money - which buys a form of worth and is often equated with true personal worth.
Being a trader is like being in a volatile personal relationship - lots of ups and downs but clearly an underlying pattern.
Ed Seykota is famous for saying everyone gets what they want out of trading. The problem is that most traders believe what they want is the money. This has been exacerbated by the vast number of "experts" in trading psychology who can't make it past probabilities and therefore harp on discipline and journals and objectivity without getting to the core of the challenge.
Objectivity is good but no one is ever going to get it without dealing with the more basic needs in human psychology - attachment, acceptance and love. Given that the market can declare you rich or poor in these benefits and that that declaration can change in the blink of an eye, you will be hooked.
I am convinced that most people trade for the mental and human challenge of it. It forces you to grow. The growth will be faster if you realize how your humanity relates to the mass-humanity of price action. "
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
If you say stuff like that, you'are gonna have to remove the "Drivel" part from the name of this thread. Was it in one of Schwager's books that there was a trader that said he was an addict to the market. So he got himself a new addiction, and suddenly without too much effort he became a better trader. Steenbarger said the same thing in his book. When I don't play squash I get antsy, it shows in my trading. I vent myself on the squash court, I don't need to vent on my desk - allowing oneself to succeed. That Seykota dude knew a thing or two!
Unintentional Truths was too obvious, so I went 180 degrees on the name.
The latter makes more sense possibly.
Trading shares some similarities with the name though. If someone is looking for a "reason" price moves, that fits into our native mental expectations, that is a tough order to fill.
"It makes no sense" becomes accepted, and in that comes structure. No?
The approach that, news is just a time of day? Or that, something gets too this or that? The shape being far more important than the event?
The shape IS the only thing. All other information is drivel.... NEWS is information, but not a shape. But, it is "Purposeful", in that it provides a service. We NEED to know what is going on out there, correct? And, possibly better yet, it draws a crowd. Exciting or shocking news can do that. Crowds are advertising targets... No?
lolol! It has been awhile since I just started typing. Your name brought me out.
I does not need to make sense. It only needs to make money.
As I fumble through my first full time year, that is a thought that settles in, more and less, off and on.
And not that I disagree with it, but in practice it can be uncomfortable. What is happening, is relevant to the world you are operating in at the time.
Humans fail in trading because a human is not as rational a creature as s/he thinks to be.
You succinctly summed up the the root causes:
Attachment
Acceptance
Love
The trinity is what all humans seek in their endeavors and that is what drives them to action (post basic necessities fulfillment).
When I am attached to my trading results, I play to defensive a game and make tiny profits.
To me Detachment seems like a correct approach till now. It is different from indifference.
When I accept all outcomes that the market comes up with in real-time I taste success, win or lose.
When I seek to be accepted, to live and die by the results of each trade, I inevitably cling to my losers and cut my winners short.
When I am a manifestation of Love I do not seek fulfillment in trading - I am but a conduit and I know that the money I generate will be used to further love on this planet.
When I seek love instead of radiating it, I turn the market into an extension of a hate machine - like trying to grab others money NOW without doing the requisite work or without being a master of the technique.
Modern society is full of pockets of hate in each individual's mind; it is difficult to escape hate, selfishness.
Love is a universal weapon. Love is what makes me profitable.
Half of trading is just learning how to cut losers and let winners run, the other half is having the physical and mental energy to repeat and repeat and repeat. The latter requires character, enthusiasm, and by all means something to keep ones self entertained. I think part of what keeps you entertained is the freedom to build your character and learn the subtle nuances of your undiscovered self. I know for myself this type of activity helps me learn to be forgiving of my shortcommings as i build an account out of drawdown or stagnation. Its a great feeling when you put on a trade that follows your rules without much though and it produces far more than you initially anticepated. For me this helps me forgive my mistakes and helps me see where i can do so elsewhere in life.
R.I.P. Joseph Bach (Itchymoku), 1987-2018.
Please visit this thread for more information.
For me the wait is the hard part in part because I have no boss like with other jobs. There is no one on my back so there becomes a thin line between waiting and procrastination.
R.I.P. Joseph Bach (Itchymoku), 1987-2018.
Please visit this thread for more information.