Mental Self Mastery in Trading

Scared Money: Knowing Better, but Still Chasing Losers Hello Trader, Have you ever chased a losing trade? Or worse, have you ever tried making your money back after you’ve chased a loser, only to get deeper into sabotaging your account? Truthfully, just about every trader has. If you have the eyes to see and the ears to hear – this experience is a seminal moment. What made you fall into the rabbit hole of throwing good money after bad – again, again, and again? Why can’t you just control your emotions by willpower and follow your trading rules? Why not, indeed.  The great trading psychologist, Pink Floyd, said it this way: “There’s someone in my head and it’s not me”. Have you ever noticed the inner commentary going on in your head as you trade, or even as you walk down the street? This inner chatter has comments just about everything, mostly negative. And it’s there especially when you are under stress while engaging the unknown from a disadvantage with money falling through your fingers. Exactly what is happening when you are seeing a trade take a dive on you? You hear the dire predictions of this “someone in your head” as you imagine the loss coming out of your trading account. That’s when scared money takes over the committee of your mind. And panic buying ensues in an attempt to save you from the pain of that loss. The ironic part is that motivation to save the loser only makes the problem bigger.  Your Inner Caveman has taken over the rational mind now. That caveman (if you developed the eyes to see and the ears to hear) is reacting to the ancient pattern of trying to save his life while cornered by a saber-toothed tiger. To him (you inherited the Caveman from your evolutionary psychology), he is under mortal threat. To you (the rational human being) is simply pushed out of the way as this survival drama ignites. Reason (taking a good small loss as part of managing risk) is thrown off the bus. Your Caveman instincts take charge and are possessed to fight off the loss. This was important in the dangerous environment of our distant ancestors. But to the world of probabilities that defines the trading world, your survival instincts are killing you. Something has gone really wrong. What used to be useful has now turned against you. This is the brain (and emergent mind) that you brought to trading. It is not going to work. Believing in conspiracy theories can work when made-up facts are believed as truth – when there is no truth meter. But the problem is that, in trading, you have a P&L statement that acts as a truth meter. It reveals the effectiveness of the mind that engages the challenges of Uncertainty. You can fabricate excuses that project responsibility away from you, but the P&L statement does not buy the lie. You take a loss no matter how much you believe the spin. The survival instincts that have driven survival for antiquity have to be changed for a new world – trading in probabilities. This is the hidden cost that no one tells you about when you are being romanced by the staggering possibilities of trading. Then, you did not have the eyes to see, nor the ears to hear the call of a new reality to which you must adapt. Or else perish – continue to chase losers or over-trade.  I encourage you to adapt. Recognize that the brain can change (through the wonderful phenomenon of neural plasticity) to bring forth a mind engineered to the needs of the trading world. Start with this month’s video about Scared Money and chasing losers. Then go deeper, read the article about Scared Money. Begin to “see” with different eyes. Then come to the free webinar about how to go about mastering this glitch in your Evolutionary Psychology. You’ve dragged these survival instincts into your trading by accident. But they do not belong there. And you can change them. Come and learn. 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! Rande [[Facebook] ]( [[LinkedIn] ]( Rande Howell Traders State of Mind www.tradersstateofmind.com This Month's NEW Article - by J. Rande Howell, MEd., LPC Scared Money: Knowing Better, but Still Chasing Losers "Know Thyself" Socrates            It doesn’t make any sense. You know better. Yet that trade goes against you (and maybe you’ve lost a couple already) and a twinge of discomfort surfaces. It’s like your “spidey-senses” begin to tingle. Then urgency sneaks up behind you and throws your discipline out the door.  Then you believe it will turn around if you just give it some room. (This is called emotional reasoning.)                 Somehow, this line of reasoning makes sense right now in the heat of the moment – you “believe” it is going to turn around (whatever that means). You “feel” certain of it (this is emotional chemistry – not the truth). You keep throwing scared money at it as the loss grows from acceptable to painful. Now it’s a bigger loss but you can’t let it lose – too much money is on the line now to let it lose. You’re ready to fight to save the trade. (You feel like you have to.) More money, now scared, is sucked into the vortex.                   You know the end of this story. It’s not pretty. The trader can have a real good win rate, but a couple of out-of-control losses eat up the P&L statement. You just don’t know what gets into you when you abandon reason and chase a loser that crashes your day, week, or month. But as a trader, it will not be a stranger to you. At the moment of feeling your “spidey-senses”, you transitioned from a manager of risk to a gambler. Yet if you are like everyone else, you never saw the hijacking coming. And you could not get out of it once it had sucked you down the rabbit hole. What really happens when you (a knowledgeable and rational trader) get emotionally and mentally overrun and start chasing your losers? The Need to Grow Your Emotional Intelligence                Emotional ignorance will cost you in trading. In the vignette above (which comes, by the way, from a client I’m currently working with), I made the assertion that the trader was hijacked when he felt his “spidey-senses” (a reference to comic book hero Spiderman). It was that twinge of discomfort leading to the “feel” of his “spidey-senses” that primed the trader for the emotional hijacking. He simply pushed that tiny discomfort away, not recognizing that it was the tip of the iceberg. If he had caught it then, he could have calmed the brewing emotional storm down before it made landfall. Instead, he pushed it away in his traditional pattern of dealing with negative emotions. Meanwhile, the mindlessness of this approach to emotions gave the emotional storm energy and so it built up outside of his working awareness...   To read more of this article, please [click here](. Free Rande Howell webinar in March, 2021 Title - Scared Money: Knowing Better, But Still Chasing Losers Speaker: Rande Howell, MEd., LPC Date/Time: [Thursday, March 18, 4:30-5:30pm EDT]( Description:   This is one of the major roadblocks in the evolution of a trader. And most will not get past it. A good day, week, or month can be ruined by your survival instincts kicking in and manhandling you in order to save a losing trade. Find out what happens when your rational self is hijacked and replaced by the fear of losing…and how it becomes scared money as you try to save a losing trade. Then learn how you can build the emotional skills that will help you to master the mind that trades. Developing your Emotional Intelligence under pressure will give you the power to maintain discipline when you need it most. Come to this free webinar and learn.   Please [click here to register]( for this free webinar. IMPORTANT! The time shown is in U.S. Eastern Daylight Time. The U.S. changes over to Daylight Savings Time on March 14, 2021. [New free Video - ]( Scared Money: Knowing Better, But Still Chasing Losers What possesses you to suddenly (and without any warning) fall apart and chase a losing position? All the while desperately hoping, believing, and praying that the trade will turn around. This is a critical problem that traders must overcome to become the traders they can be. Watch this video as Rande Howell explores what’s behind this breakdown in performance. And what you need to do to fix this problem so that you can move further into your journey as a trader. Watch this video. (Then [register for our March 2021 webinar](  Please [click here]( scroll down a bit) to view the video. Developing Traders State of Mind Group Course - Spring, 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 April. 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]( | [Customer Contact Data Notice]( Sent by rande@mytradersstateofmind.com powered by [Trusted Email from Constant Contact - Try it FREE today.]( [Try email marketing for free today!](