Readying Yourself for the Emotional Storms of Trading

Retrain Your Brain for Success in Trading Hello Trader, Two powerful forces collide in the development of a trader. First is to recognize the need to develop the mind that trades – and volitionally set out to do so. This is absolutely necessary because the brain (and its emergent mind) that you bring to trading is not up to the task of trading – no matter how much knowledge you stuff into it. The second powerful force in the collision is the desire for everything to stay the same – resistance to the very changes necessary to become a consistently profitable trader.   Once your brain finds a successful solution to a certain challenge, the fix becomes locked into place in your neural-circuitry and becomes an automatic habit. This is why you keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again under stress. And any effort to change that established habit will be resisted until the brain (you) are forced to change. You bring that trait into trading. And even though it is proving, again and again, to no longer serve you – that limbic pattern of both perception and behavior embedded into that habit refuses to change until it is forced to do so. (Usually at great cost to the trader.) But the brain does not learn from its successes. It learns from its failures – when the trader becomes open to learning on the level of belief. A true student of trading makes mistakes and chooses to learn from them, rather than covering them up or denying them. These mistakes reveal breakdowns in our critical competencies needed for successful trading. Particularly important are your competencies in your performance psychology and your emotional intelligence – or your capacity to use emotions to create the trading mind. Yet you don’t want to make a mistake. (What would that say about you as a trader if you made a mistake and lost?). There is the rub.  You want to be good at trading, which you accomplish by making mistakes (being wrong and losing) and learning from those mistakes. In this view, mistakes are a gift. Yet, simultaneously, you hate making mistakes that lead to losing. In that distain for losing (for what it might say about you as a person), you forfeit the opportunity for losing. It’s a paradox, isn’t it? In this case, mistakes (losing) close down the possibility of learning.  I propose something different. Instead of taking a position of hating losing and needing to be a winner, I propose that you become a student who is learning. Mistakes become the opportunity to learn and improve rather than to be avoided. Mistakes are going to happen. It is the attitude about the mistake that matters. Your choice is to become a lifetime learner or to stay stuck in old ways that no longer serve you well. It is this notion of becoming a lifetime learner – learning from your mistakes rather than being shamed by them – that we look at this month. Watch this month's [video]( the [article]( [register for the free webinar]( this month. p.s. Hey, we now have Traders State of Mind Facebook and LinkedIn pages. Please click on [Facebook Traders State of Mind]( see that page and [LinkedIn Traders State of Mind]( see our LinkedIn page. We would love for you to Like our Facebook page and Follow Us on LinkedIn. To do so, please click on the icons below...and thanks! To Your Prosperity Rande [[Facebook] ]( [[LinkedIn] ]( Rande Howell Traders State of Mind www.tradersstateofmind.com This Month's NEW Article - by J. Rande Howell, MEd., LPC Retrain Your Brain for Success in Trading “Rande, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Technically I know how to trade. I know what to do. In simulation, I can practically print money. The problem is that I do not do what I’m supposed to do when the money is real. I have rules, but at crunch time – I don’t follow my rules. Instead, “something” possesses me and I do stupid stuff. Only I don’t know I’m doing it until the smoke clears. What had been a promising day turns into a red day. I give back everything and more. What’s wrong with me?” A Quantum Leap: Moving from Instinct Driven Behavior Based on the Illusion of Control to a Probability Based World            I get communications like this a number of times each week. A trader thinks that his or her problems are unique, but this is a common problem that all evolving traders have to face and master - the Brain on Uncertainty. The answer to the trader’s question, “What’s wrong with me?” is that nothing is wrong with the trader. He is normal. His brain is reacting to Uncertainty fueled by risk as it evolved for millions of years. It’s just doing its job as it was built to do.             The problem is that he is asking his brain to do something that it is diametrically opposed to doing – being comfortable while acting in the face of Uncertainty with tangible risk on the table. In the vignette above, the “something” that has possessed the trader’s mind under stressful conditions (and has caused him to throw out his rules that give him an edge) is the instinctive nature of the ancient emotional or limbic brain. It is the brain that we share with our distant pre-historic ancestors BEFORE the modern Thinking Brain developed. It is also the brain that we share with other social mammalians. So, we share a very similar Emotional Brain with other members of the animal kingdom, but humans also evolved this gigantic Thinking Brain that forever separated us from the rest of the pack. Out of this, humans get quite arrogant and come to believe that Thinking is separate from Emotion. This is a short-sighted flaw in perception because the Emotional Brain has enormous power over the Thinking Brain. That very power causes the trader in the vignette to throw out his trading rules when he engages Uncertainty with real risk on the line.            Our brain was not engineered as a new product, where all the flaws are eliminated, when we humans separated and became a distinct species. Instead, it evolved one work-around after another. The old stuff still hung around and the new system was built over the old. That is what you bring to trading. Much like when one bank acquires another but does not build a completely new computer system (that would be ideal in a perfect world). Rather, it does a workaround. Awkwardly the two banking systems integrate two independent systems into one. There are flaws in this approach – but starting from scratch is simply not an option. You get something that is functional but not perfect.              It is the same way with your brain when exposed to the randomness of Uncertainty. As a trader, you are attempting to produce a workaround from your current knowledge and skill to the knowledge and skills needed for success in trading. Unfortunately, there are some thorny flaws in the assumptions you bring subconsciously to trading about success, winning, losing, being right, and predicting outcomes that are so familiar that it would not occur to you to question them. They are invisible to you. And they don’t work in the arena of trading. This is your Emotional Brain operating below conscious threshold on instinctual and automatic programming with no input from the Thinking Brain. The Thinking Brain never sees this part of your brain responding to uncertainty. This is what is referred to as your subconscious. The Flaw in the Workaround Between the Emotional Brain and the Thinking Brain Your highly vaulted Thinking Brain started out as a growth out of the Emotional Brain. We could call it a tumor. It was highly valued for survival in a very dangerous world in which our ancestors lived. This new-fangled aspect of our brain gave us humans a great advantage in the survival game...  To read more of this article, please [click here](. Free Rande Howell webinar in December, 2020 Title - Retrain Your Brain for Success in Trading Speaker: Rande Howell, MEd., LPC Date/Time: [Thursday, Dec. 10, 2020, 4:30-5:30pm EST]( Description:  As traders evolve, they discover that trading knowledge, by itself, does not lead to success. It also requires a brain that stays patient, disciplined, and impartial under the stress of uncertainty and risk. The problem is that the brain you brought to trading is not up to the job. It has to be retrained. Come learn from Rande Howell, trading psychologist, how to rebuild your mind for the challenges of trading. You can rebuild your mind, but it has to be retrained from its original purpose. Come learn how. Register for this free webinar. Please [click here]( to register for this free webinar. IMPORTANT! The U.S. moved to Standard Time on Nov. 1. The time shown is in U.S. Eastern Standard Time! [New free Video - ]( Retrain Your Brain for Success in Trading Mastering the trading mind begins with retraining the way the brain is built to handle Uncertainty. Point blank – you bring to trading an ancient brain that seeks survival certainty and falls apart under the uncertainty of trading. Yet you can train your brain to operate efficiently when engaging Uncertainty. This is the edge you seek. Watch this video with Rande Howell, trading psychologist, and find out how to master your emotions and build a mind that stays cool under pressure. (Then [register for our December webinar]( Please [click here]( scroll down a bit) to view the video. Developing Traders State of Mind Group Course - Winter, 2021 The emotional brain is built to seek safety in a dangerous world. The world that it was created for has long since disappeared. It developed a hair-trigger to the fight/flight response because that is what was needed for survival. Now, it has been taken out of the jungle (where risk meant danger) and is being asked to act civilized in a world of probability - where risk is not lethal. Without re-training and re-programming the emotional limbic system, this is not going to happen. It is built to react to danger quickly. It was never built to ponder your rules when it is experiencing vulnerability, discomfort, and fear. It was programmed to act from your survival instinct.  Until this is done, your emotional brain will continue to hijack your thinking brain when you feel the discomfort of uncertainty and risk. This is your silent partner. The question is: Are you going to try to continue to pretend it's not part of your trading mind? Or, are you ready to re-program it for the modern world of trading and probability. Fortunately, this can be done. The Developing Traders State of Mind Group Course Teaches You How to Master Reactive Emotions The Group Course has been called a wake-up call by many traders. Most simply have no idea how the brain and mind work to produce performance in the clutch with risk on. You learn here. It's more than a wake-up call - it a door that opens you to a whole new world. You learn how the emotional brain (so focused on survival) needs to be handled to become an effective working partner with the thinking brain. This course is eye-opening. I had no idea how to fix the problems I had with my trading until this course. Learning how to manage emotions is only the start. You learn how to create a mind built to manage uncertainty. Bottom line is that I know longer sabotage myself and have become profitable. I wish I had taken the group course a long time ago. It's a difference maker. SD From the start you learn how to calm survival emotions down before they become big and hijack your trading mind. That's just the first step. The major benefit is that you learn how to create a mind built for trading, rather than survival in the past. This is what has to happen for success in trading. You have been using a brain/mind created for circumstances that no longer exist. What is needed is a brain/mind built for probability management. Where you learn to become comfortable with the discomfort of uncertainty rather than triggering to your survival instinct. This is what every trader, to be successful, has to learn. Time to register! The first review session for the Group Course is in January. By this date you need to have studied the Class 101 materials in depth. So, give yourself lots of time to study, and get started now! The survival Instinct is not going to just go away. It is your partner. Do you want to learn to work with it so that it helps you to become the trader you can be? [Please Click here to register ]( the Group Course. [Please Click here to view a video about the Group Course or for more information.]( The DTSM Group Course teaches the same basic skills that are taught in my individual course, but is only $1195. This is spread out as five payments of $239/each over a 10-week time period. It's a whole lot of training for a reasonable cost. SPECIAL NOTE REGARDING PAYMENT - PayPal CANNOT be used as a payment method for this Group Course since PayPal does not allow for rebilling. If you have any questions regarding this, please contact Delores at delores@mytradersstateofmind.com Mindful Trading: Mastering Your Emotions and the Inner Game Author: J. Rande Howell, MEd., LPC If you know how to trade when not in the pressure of trading, but you have not been able to trade live from a calm, detached, and disciplined state of mind, this book will open your eyes. Mindful Trading actually shows you HOW to develop a peak performance state of mind specifically for trading. This book gets in the head of a trader. You will meet a number of real life traders who have overcome self doubt, fear, and impulsiveness. You will see how they overcame self-limiting beliefs and began trading from an empowered state of mind. You will discover your core beliefs that actually trade your system and methodology. And without change at this fundamental level, old self-limiting patterns of thought and belief re-assert themselves shortly after your brain pushes off any "tricks and tips" you learned from self-help seminars. It is this change at the organization of meaning and biology that makes this book so different. A number of disciplines are folded into a unified process that really gets at long term change. Those disciplines include neuro-biology, emotional intelligence, ontological reconstruction of the self, attachment theory and the meaning of the self, and Jungian archetypes. In Mindful Trading, imbedded in self-limiting beliefs, you are carried through a change process that transforms traders mired in mediocrity to a re-organization of the mind for peak performance trading. Mindful Trading is available both as an [Audio book]( and a [downloadable e-book](. [Read an excerpt from Mindful Trading]( free and you get to look inside a trader's mind) And consider the companion study tool: the  [Mindful Trading Companion]( [ e-Workbook!]( Explore a Trader's State of Mind Coaching Relationship with Rande Howell This is a personalized course for the trader who is ready to move beyond being stuck in self limiting beliefs. If you have recognized that it is you that stands in the way of your becoming a more successful trader, then this challenge can become an opportunity for re-invention of yourself as a trader, rather than something to avoid. It's like a door opening to an entirely new world. Great athletes recognize that the mental aspect of their game requires a performance coach for them to reach their potential. Trading is the same. Self-limiting beliefs have to be rooted out and changed - and a peak performance mindset has to be developed. It's all part of the training. Having a methodology that gives you an edge is not enough. You have to develop your mind so that it gives you the psychological edge to use your methodology and platform so that the uncertainty found in trading favors you. This is trading beyond fear. It is trading from a disciplined, impartial, patient, and courageous state of mind. Without emotional regulation training, this can take years (if ever) to achieve on your own. Teasing apart uncertainty from fear is simply something that the brain will not do on its own. The psychology to this has to be developed...or you stay stuck in the same old self-fulfilling prophesies of mediocrity. Do you want to move beyond fear and trade from a calm, detached, and disciplined state of mind?  If you are trying to decide between the Group Course and the Individual Course, then c[lick here to check out a free, no obligation consult with Rande Howell]( get to see how this powerful technology of the mind can move your trading to the next level. To make this free consult productive for you, I recommend that you first attend one of my free webinars. This will lay down a lot of groundwork so that when you speak with me -- you'll be hitting on all cylinders. Also, reading my book - Mindful Trading - is advised.   [Website]( Book]( & Interviews]( Videos]( rande@mytradersstateofmind.com | [www.tradersstateofmind.com]( [By joining you get to keep connected to this powerful training process for the development of the potential you have as a trader. And if you decide differently, you can always un-subscribe. If you're a student of trading, this newsletter is a powerful tool for your development.]( Empowered Horizons | 1824 Prescott Ct., Iron Station, NC 28080 [Unsubscribe {EMAIL}]( [Update Profile]( | [About our service provider]( Sent by rande@mytradersstateofmind.com powered by [Trusted Email from Constant Contact - Try it FREE today.]( [Try email marketing for free today!](