Fat Tails 

I also believe that it works. I am not sure that it works for everybody, though.

That's right, we agree then, and George will do I think.
Some people won't stop smoking with hypnotherapy, and some people are impossible to hypnotize (I think you may be one of them ).
But some people are very good "clients" for this, easy to hypnotize, and good results for them.

Great info!

Thanks for sharing Tmmaggi.

tmmaggi 

Jagui, Here are my favorite hypnosis websites. I am not affiliated with any of them. My favorite one: STOCK TRADER The reason it is my favorite is because he gives you the exact words he is using. I've bought some general ones in the past about money and success, but sometimes I don't agree with the particular suggestions. So, it's excellent that he is telling you verbatim what's on the tapes. Also, there are a lot of different ones for different types of trading. It's cool that he really gets specific. I combined phrases from the wide variety of trading scripts he has on there to make my own, which I read through sometimes. Trading Hypnosis This one I actually own myself: Trading Psychology | Self Hypnosis Downloads This one is really NLP and is by Patrick Stockhausen. The five part course is great and you don't get a bunch of never-ending e-mails. In fact, I don't recall getting a single one after I took the free course. I do own the Millionaire Mindset Program and listen to it frequently. There are three sessions, one of which you're supposed to listen to before trading and another during the trading session. Here's the website for that one: The Millionaire's Mind Set : For Traders & Investors I've really considered buying these: E-Mini DayTrading Course | Trading Psychology CDs LOVE this one: EOC Institute- EquiSync- Brainwave technology for deep meditation. I own the Equisync Enlightenment. Listen to it nearly every night as I'm falling asleep. You do need headphones, though. It just sounds like rain, not a thunderstorm. This site is extremely rich with information and I found it extremely interesting. There's no talking or anything on the CDs. Hope it helps . . .

I managed to improve some important things in my mind by using psycho-cybernetics.
It is not hypnotims, but it teaches you how to relax, how to get rid of bad things in your mind (or unlearning) and how to reprogram your mind through visualization.

I think it is a kind of Neuro Linguistic Programming.

jagui 

I managed to improve some important things in my mind by using psycho-cybernetics. It is not hypnotims, but it teaches you how to relax, how to get rid of bad things in your mind (or unlearning) and how to reprogram your mind through visualization. I think it is a kind of Neuro Linguistic Programming.

That sounds very interesting!!! Did you learn it from a book, CDs, website? I have trouble relaxing, hence all the CDs I own and websites I visit looking for help.

tmmaggi 

That sounds very interesting!!! Did you learn it from a book, CDs, website? I have trouble relaxing, hence all the CDs I own and websites I visit looking for help.

I learned from the book:

The New Psycho-Cybernetics, by Maxwell Maltz and Dan S. Kennedy.

Maybe NLP has evolved since then, but I think this book is the best start.

I must confess that relaxing is the thing that I do better, I must be born to relax :-)

tmmaggi,

You're most welcome!
And remember if you've managed to get yourself into trans, then every sentence (affirmation etc.), will work! Why? The gatekeeper is gone, and the information is allowed to enter directly into the subconscious! That's the trick, and what differs a good hypnotist from a bad one, is that he/she is able to see if you're passed your gatekeeper!

One idea is to do this before you've fallen a sleep! Just before we've fallen into sleep our brain goes into (one of the Greeks, can't remember which one Alpha or ....) state, and that's as near as trans as we can come! So, when you go to bed, start by relaxing, and go on after that to your sentences, and repeat them till you've fallen a sleep.

tmmaggi 

I agree with what you're saying George. When you hear stuff like the above quote, your gatekeeper knows you're just a big liar. (That's why I didn't buy it). But, there are some valuable phrases here and there in this script and a couple others on the site. That way you can pick and choose which sentences work for your circumstances and your brain will actually listen to. "You'll need a very good hypnotist! " THAT is a tough task all by itself! For me, it was tough to find a hypnotist at all, and apparently the one I found wasn't a good one, since she counted on my listening to a CD of our session every night. Still, I keep dreaming of strategies to get the demons out of my head. Thanks for those links, by the way, George.

Sam!

I couldn't agree more!

sam028 

That's right, we agree then, and George will do I think. Some people won't stop smoking with hypnotherapy, and some people are impossible to hypnotize (I think you may be one of them ). But some people are very good "clients" for this, easy to hypnotize, and good results for them.

Fat Tails 

Hello George, Great post. For me hypnosis would never work, as I would not be able and willing to let go things and let myself floating into the unknown. Your gatekeeper is the bad habit. What we need to do, is unlearning our habits. If hypnosis is one vehicle that can be used for unlearning, there are other vehicles. Let me discuss one example. Impatience I am used to work. I do not want to sit in front of my screens doing nothing, I am also eager to trade. So I will enter a trade within the first 10 minutes after I switched on my equipment. Ooops! More often than not it will become a loser. I should have waited to allow myself to inhale the mood of the market and to get into the zone. Also go through my daily check list first. An airplane pilot will not take off, before he has done his homework and got the clearing of the tower. Fine, I don't have a tower, nobody prevents me from killing myself. So what to do about this? How can I unlearn to trade during the first 15 minutes? First I need to be aware of the problem. For example I can write a post on Big Mike's Forum convincing myself that I should not trade during the first 15 minutes. Then I need a mechanism for unlearning. For example I can take my little Buddha and put it in front of my screens. I am not a buddhist, but this Buddha is a laughing Buddha, so if I put it in front of my screens, it will laugh at me. Put that on my daily check list: Little Buddha sits in front of the screens during the first 15 minutes and tells me that I should not trade. This should work to trigger the unlearning of the bad habit. I willl save the money for the hypnotherapist and buy a bottle of good wine instead. Once I have successfully learned to be patient, little Buddha goes back to his little corner, and I will look for the next bad habit. So far the theory. Did you really stop smoking? Have you done as much exercise as you need? Did you stop eating cookies? How many bad habits did you unlearn during the last month? Maybe I should try a hypnotherapist instead. But then I do not like fairy tales and I do not believe in Father X-mas. How the hell should hypnotherapy work? Little Buddha will even laugh more at me.

Fat Tails my friend,

I liked your other picture better! But maybe this one is giving your more justice !

So apart from the jokes! I totally agree with you!
The unlearning is the most important key in this whole equation called life! The irony is that, we have to learn first in order to unlearn later. And by the time we've learned, we've already paved our paths with concrete!

The key is still the one you're hiding constantly behind! Dump the monkey! And reach out!
I'm in a bad mode right now. Could be the bottle of wine, you suggested!

Let me give you a hint!

When do you do your best trades? And really just stop over rationalizing, and just be fair to yourself. When, do you always, always get your best trades?


Al right, I confess, I guessed here! But I do dare to guess, that this is the case for almost all of us!
The best trades, we do, ALWAYS when we don't give a damn about the outcome!

Correct me if I'm wrong!

Now, why is it that way? Very simple answer! NO FEAR!

When we don't give a damn about the outcome, we simply don't care. We just throw the trade out there, and we don't care if it's going against us, or if it's with us. We simply don't care. And because we lack fear, - that indeed allows us to perceive the trade very much differently from our "normal" we do care about the outcome trade - our perception shifts to a much more objective one, you're getting in sync with the market! That's what's happening to you (you meaning all of us) when you trade on sim. You're trading without the fear of loosing money.

It's called "LETTING GO"!


Now, would hypnosis even reach that far, and help you? Yes if you dare to let go of things!
Would the unlearning process allow you to give up your safety?! No, because we're so keen to get our so beloved past to be projected onto our future!



PS: Impatience is also based on fear!

Oh and by the way! One thing about habits. Try to look at it this way instead!
The moment you've realized that your so beloved habit exists then it's not a habit anymore. It shifts. And it shifts to a choice you're making. The question to be asked then is WHY?
Why am I choosing to do this?


And Fat Tails, once again thanks for your wonderful injections! I do enjoy, and appreciate them.

George 

Fat Tails my friend, I liked your other picture better! But maybe this one is giving your more justice ! So apart from the jokes! I totally agree with you! The unlearning is the most important key in this whole equation called life! The irony is that, we have to learn first in order to unlearn later. And by the time we've learned, we've already paved our paths with concrete! The key is still the one you're hiding constantly behind! Dump the monkey! And reach out! I'm in a bad mode right now. Could be the bottle of wine, you suggested! Let me give you a hint! When do you do your best trades? And really just stop over rationalizing, and just be fair to yourself. When, do you always, always get your best trades? Al right, I confess, I guessed here! But I do dare to guess, that this is the case for almost all of us! The best trades, we do, ALWAYS when we don't give a damn about the outcome! Correct me if I'm wrong! Now, why is it that way? Very simple answer! NO FEAR! When we don't give a damn about the outcome, we simply don't care. We just throw the trade out there, and we don't care if it's going against us, or if it's with us. We simply don't care. And because we lack fear, - that indeed allows us to perceive the trade very much differently from our "normal" we do care about the outcome trade - our perception shifts to a much more objective one, you're getting in sync with the market! That's what's happening to you (you meaning all of us) when you trade on sim. You're trading without the fear of loosing money. It's called "LETTING GO"! Now, would hypnosis even reach that far, and help you? Yes if you dare to let go of things! Would the unlearning process allow you to give up your safety?! No, because we're so keen to get our so beloved past to be projected onto our future! PS: Impatience is also based on fear! Oh and by the way! One thing about habits. Try to look at it this way instead! The moment you've realized that your so beloved habit exists then it's not a habit anymore. It shifts. And it shifts to a choice you're making. The question to be asked then is WHY? Why am I choosing to do this? And Fat Tails, once again thanks for your wonderful injections! I do enjoy, and appreciate them.

Absolubtly brilliant post george thank you very much!

George 

Fat Tails my friend, I liked your other picture better! But maybe this one is giving your more justice ! The key is still the one you're hiding constantly behind! Dump the monkey! And reach out! PS: Impatience is also based on fear!

George,

I really enjoy reading your posts. It is a challenge to find an appropriate answer.

"Dump the Monkey". I am still laughing. Seems you prefer an orang utan baby with pampers to a grown up gorilla? Do you feel that the monkey is a threat to the dogs?

No, that monkey won't be dumped. When I first visited this forum, I was not sure whether it was trader's forum or a forum for dog breeders. A dog is a follower, representing the trading crowd. It stands for the retail bus people. Dogs of the Dow. The monkey tends to do the unexpected and for me it has several meanings:

It is a contrarian response to a crowd of dogs (including your beloved bat).

I think it was Konrad Lorenz who compared humans to a carriage with rocket propulsion, the carriage being our instincts and the rocket propulsion our intellect. There is a lack of equilibrium, as the carriage is not adapted to the propulsion system. The monkey represents our lower instincts, those instincts and impulsive reactions which make trading that difficult. The monkey is part of every traders personality and it needs to arrange itself with the rocket propulsion. Nothing wrong there.

The monkey also stands for fugacity. The orang utans ("orang hutan" Bahasa Indonesia for forest man) and the gorillas are near extinct, because humans are badly exploiting the planet's resources. The climatic change and the extinction of a large variety of species may well be a 7-sigma-event in the Earth's history. It is a fat tail or black swan, which is now inescapable. It paralles events such as the Flash Crash. Both the evolution of species and the markets are nonlinear dynamic systems, the extinction of the species is the evolutionary crash.

I agree that this leads a bit away from the subject of this thread, just wanted to explain why I do not intend to "dump the Monkey". Byhe way, it is not yet sure that Homo Sapiens will prove superior to the rats or monkeys.

You say that impatience is based on fear.

This could well be in some circumstances. But I do not agree in general. At the origin I would rather see a conflict between something that holds you back - typically an external cause - and the wish to follow an already activated plan or idea. Impatience is bad a way to cope with this conflict. I think it is also part of our Western culture. Actually I am much more patient when in Asia or on a holiday trip.

Impatience can be based on fear, if you cannot stand the tension any more and follow an impulse. But I think that the other reaction is predominant, that fear prevents you from trading.

Impatience is just a habit. If your mind is trained and used to a certain level of noise, it asks you for some entertainment. If I put on the first trade too early, it is not fear, it is rather boredom, as I do not want to follow the exercise of my prefabricated plan. Charts are like shadow plays, you get five new ideas every minute, and then you are curious, you want to try what happens, if - and oops - you will be find out.

It is the difficulty to reach the zone. If you go to a piano concert, usually the pianist has a hard time during the first 15 minutes, the audience also has. So he does not play well. If am listening I cannot fully concentrate either, it takes me at least 20 minutes to settle down and to focus my attention to the music. So you will not have a flow experience, when starting out, and the flow experience is what every top performer needs. The flow protects you and actually activates you mental capacities, which are not present during the first half hour.

So I am not in the zone during the first 20 minutes for any activity. In the morning these 20 minutes can easily become 30 minutes, in the evening I can adapt somehow faster.

Slowly diving into another world.