Free Rande Howell webinar: How to Recover and Grow from a Big Loss in Trading

How to Recover and Grow from a  Big Loss in Trading Hello Trader,                It happens. For whatever reason, you just took a big loss that shakes you to your foundation – one of those that feel like a gut punch. In the intense vulnerability of the moment, you feel the deep pit of pain in your stomach suck the air out of you.  Shock, disbelief, powerlessness, sadness, fear, anger, and shame (lots of shame) come whirling in waves as the reality of the loss sets in. It’s devastating.  Your dreams as a trader come crashing down in your mind’s eye. Most traders have faced this situation a time or two – or more. But what do you do about it? What You Should Have Known Before You Started Risking Capital Before answering this question directly, let’s develop some background that will help you deal with the aftermath of taking a big loss. In the scenario above, what just happened to the survival instincts of the brain? Remember, those survival instincts are far more powerful than your thinking brain. If the Thinking Brain gets in the way of the Emotional Brain in the execution of survival protocols, the Emotional Brain simply steamrolls the Thinking Brain. You probably know this situation as TILT.  So, let’s start right there. Your brain is built by your evolutionary psychology to control outcome at all costs. It is the power to survive that is being thrown into question by taking a huge loss. The brain does not know money exists. However, to the brain, money exists as a symbolic representation of power – the power to survive in the moment. And by taking a large loss, the brain perceives that its very existence is being threatened. As a result, you feel vulnerability – and revert back to primitive survival strategies (Money = Power, Loss of Money = Loss of Power, Loss of Power = Loss of Life). To the brain, taking a huge hit is equated to being attacked by a saber-toothed tiger, mauled, half-eaten, and left to die. Something the brain wants to avoid at the deepest level of your survival instincts. This is the set-up to your dilemma.  Now, with that as a background, let’s begin looking at how to handle a major loss. Generally, either lust for making a lot of money in the beginning of a trade or fear of loss (life) when the trade goes against you is at the core of the problem that has to be solved if you are to learn from your loss. Traders often approach their day of trading with the assertion that they are going to make money today. The problem with this declaration is that they have no control over whether or not they will make money or lose money on any given trade. So, an assumption is buried in the declaration that “you are going to make money today” that sets you up for failure. That assumption is that you can control outcome. That is the illusion of control (that you fall into) and sets you up to be eaten alive by the saber-toothed tiger. You live in the illusion that you can control the outcome and bring that mindset to your performances in trading. You are looking to make money (which you cannot control) rather than focusing on the one thing you can control – the mind you bring into the moment of performance. It doesn’t mean that you are going to make money with mind over matter. But it does mean that, if you have a true edge, over time you will extract more capital from the markets that you give back. Winning is not the aim. Performance is. The other driving factor in a huge loss is the trader’s iron-fisted desire to not lose – which he also cannot control. And as the trader starts managing the trade after order fill and the trade goes against him, his irrational will to win is confronted by a trade going against him – and then streaking to his stop. Remember, taking a loss to the Caveman Brain is tantamount to being attacked and becoming somebody else’s meal. Taking the loss, to the emotional brain, means death. So the trader, now hijacked by fear of loss (death) triggers to fight/flight. It’s a fight to the death. The trader will do anything to not lose to the foe. More and more money is thrown at the remote possibility that he might get out of this dilemma alive. The trader now has become a gambler. He is in panic mode. If only his brain was prepared to take smart losses! But, instead, his brain is poorly trained in the required emotional state management.  First Aid for an Acute Stress Event (the Loss) First, start breathing diaphragmatically. That means pulling air into your abdomen, then to your chest. Hold for a moment. Then release slowly. And continue breathing this way until you can feel the wave of emotion stabilize. Why are you doing this? You are regulating the intensity of the emotions erupting around the loss of capital and the loss of your sense of power. If you do not regulate it, the emotions of loss will sweep you away into a deeper tailspin. Diaphragmatic breathing is associated with calm states of mind. So, by practicing this skill, you will calm down the power of your emotional response to the loss. This does not cure the problem, but it can help you tolerate your emotional reaction to the loss. Second, acknowledge that you are in the first stage of grief – shock. If you find yourself thinking or saying, “I can’t believe this!”, “this can’t have happened.”, or other forms of disbelief – you are in shock. Shock has to wear off before you can start working to stabilize yourself. You must breathe through it until the shock (the disbelief) subsides. This could take some time. How you manage yourself in this first stage of grief will go a long way towards being able to successfully integrate the experience so you can move on from the catastrophic loss. Third, after the shock wears off, you’ll probably notice that you enter a stage of the grief process known as bargaining. If you find yourself having conversations that start with “if only” or figuring out how you can make things right – you are in the bargaining stage. The aim of bargaining is denial of the concreteness of the loss. It is the acceptance of the loss that is being denied. From your primitive brain’s survival perspective, the last thing it wants to accept is loss. To your brain that loss means the loss of power. And with that loss of power, you have just become someone else’s meal. And, in fact, figuratively you have just fed another trader who was on the other side of your position.   Many people (traders included) get stuck in the denial of bargaining. It is much easier in the short term to project the responsibility of your problems onto others (including the trading gods). People spend lifetimes denying responsibility for their actions. Traders are no different. The problem is that by not taking responsibility for the loss, you stay stuck in the bargaining and denial of loss – and you cut off the capacity to grow from the experience because you are not accepting it.  Growing from the Gift of the Disaster But as reality starts closing in, traders taking a huge loss find another way to not deal with the loss. They get angry at trading and produce arguments about trading actually being another form of gambling. They get angry at their teachers. They get angry at themselves. And they begin beating themselves up for making the mistake of a lifetime, rather than accepting the loss and learning from it. Anger is a great short-term way of dealing with the grief of loss. Anger makes you feel powerful in the short term. It’s addictive. It appears to be a great antidote to the feeling of powerlessness that comes after a catastrophic loss. The problem is that anger is a short term solution to a problem that is rooted in deeply held beliefs about who you are as a person exposed by loss. And that is what the trader is avoiding at all costs. Next comes sadness in the grief process. After the anger leaves, because of its toxicity (the chemistry of anger is indeed toxic to your body), sadness becomes the job of effective grieving. In the work of sadness, you fully acknowledge the loss and its impact on your life. And you let yourself grieve. Most people do a good bit of crying during the work of sadness (letting go). They are cleansing the body and the mind for the death of the old Self and are building the foundation for an emerging Self - one that has found the humility to see himself/herself in the mirror and recognize that change is necessary. In the process of grieving the loss, a greater sense of self-honesty is born.  Shame as the Tool of Radical Change Yes, you read that above headline right. This is the place where a new trading mind can be reconstructed from the ruins of the loss. You find that trading is about self-mastery first, not making money or losing money. It is also the time to face what you have been avoiding. The experience of Shame. Shame is an enormously misunderstood emotion. Most experience toxic shame – where your loss indicates that you are inadequate as a human being and want to run from it – which is exactly how most people respond to a huge loss. Healthy shame is not like that. Healthy shame tells you that the current way the Self (what you think of as you) is organized is not working for the whole of the human being. And you need to reorganize yourself into higher functioning. Then Shame starts the process by disorganizing the Self. That’s the gut wrenching feeling you have been attempting to hide from. In the loss you have no choice but to acknowledge its presence. Your resistance to self-examination led you to this pivotal moment. Unfortunately, few know how to use Shame as a tool to reshape the Self. But it is an organizing emotion, sitting there ready to be used to build a far more effective trading mind. It takes power, discipline, courage, and self-compassion to let Shame do its job of reorganizing the Self into higher functioning. The work of reconstruction starts with recognizing the difference between your incompetent performance (which resulted in a huge loss), and the value of your being. Your identity (sense of Self) got wrapped up in winning in order to matter, and the huge loss pulled your self-worth down because of that false connection. Courageously using Shame, this loss gives you the chance to reevaluate your sense of mattering, your sense of worth, and your sense of competence – and to separate performance from being. The loss was never about YOU. It was about your competency (which you can improve). And now you can build a self where, whether you win or lose, you matter. You bring a very different performer to the management of risk and capital - one who is not trying to prove himself. Instead, you bring a mind focused on performing in the moment. This is what you can learn from a bad loss. That mind can be built. Do want to learn how?  Now is the time to begin traveling down your own path to self-mastery in trading. Come and Learn. Watch my [video]( [register and attend our free webinar]( go to our [website]( and enjoy all the learning materials there. Sign up for our [Courses](. Make a move in the right direction. Take action, now. [[Facebook] ]( [[LinkedIn] ]( Rande Howell Traders State of Mind www.tradersstateofmind.com Free Rande Howell webinar in April 2023 Title - How to Recover and Grow from a Big Trading Loss  Speaker: Rande Howell Date/Time: [Thursday, April 6, 2023, 4:30-5:30pm EDT]( IMPORTANT! The time shown is in U.S. Eastern Daylight Saving Time! Description:   A big loss shakes you to the bones and unnerves you to the core. But when it happens, how do you deal with it? You are forced to deal with the loss, for better or for worse. Traders find themselves ill-equipped to handle an event like a catastrophic loss. Learning to effectively grieve your losses is one of the core skills a trader must learn if they plan on being around trading for the long haul. Rande will be examining what you can do to dampen the pain in the short run (getting through the day) and also how to work with the grief of loss to make you a better trader. It is through developing the skill of grieving that the mind can be rebuilt into the performance mind needed for success in trading.  Please [click here]( to register for this free webinar. IMPORTANT! The time shown is in U.S. Eastern Standard Time. [New free Video - ]( How to Recover and Grow from a Big Loss in Trading Taking a big loss is a gut-wrenching experience. How do you pick yourself up off the ground and move forward? Rande walks you through a process from managing the first wave of emotions that overwhelm you to working through the grief of the loss productively.  The big loss can become a turning point in the evolution of the trader. In the humility that becomes possible after the loss, the trader can use it as a fulcrum for changing his trader’s mindset. And the trader can move from the fixated mindlessness that got him into trouble to the centered mindfulness that leads to an intentional mind that is necessary for success in trading. This is a very important video for all traders to see. Watch now. Please [click here]( (and scroll down a bit) to view the video. Developing Traders State of Mind Group Course - Summer, 2023 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. All those who register now will be enrolled in the Summer 2023 Group Course, which has its 1st Group Meeting on May 18. 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 can be 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]( a [paper 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 seriously considering registering for 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]( | [Constant 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!](