A couple of weekends back, while on the train to London, I posted this up on Twitter:
The traders I was going to meet were Craig and Aaron, and our catch up marked the end of working closely together for three years.
Following that, Craig has now kindly forwarded the following note:
In my previous post, I talked about ensuring you take action, after having a clear plan in place.
But, for many, this is where any psychological issues start to rear their head, as you start to implement your plan with real money at risk in the market.
Most people solely focus on trying to develop a method that can generate profits from the markets. But, how many market participants do you know who spend just as much time (if not more) working on themselves?
Over the years, one thing I have found is that people are very good at talking about what they want to do. Following through and putting any plan into action is a different matter, though.
Recently I came across my copy of Awaken the Giant Within, by Tony Robbins. I originally bought the book 10 years or so ago, but after reading it once, I pretty much forgot about it until I came across by chance, gathering dust.
Over the last few years, I've become greatly interested in the whole self-help/psychology sphere and the impact it can have on a traders' mindset. This can ultimately determine whether a trader will become successful or not in the long run. And, in the meantime, I've read a whole bunch of books related to that topic. Re-reading Robbins' book shows where a lot of these ideas originally came from or became popular.
We as individuals all have our own personality traits and characteristics. Sometimes you have to learn and overcome some of the issues these can create. However, sometimes a way forward can be shaped which embraces these traits.
This is a post that is highly personal to me. Some readers might find
it useful. Some might find it total poppycock. Hopefully it will be
thought provoking.
One of the more interesting interviews in the first Market Wizards
book is that with Dr Van K Tharp. For many, his interview was their first
exposure to concepts such as modelling, anchoring and other aspects of
trading psychology. This area is now receiving far more attention than
say 20 or 30 years ago thanks to practitioners like Van Tharp, Ari Kiev,
Brett Steenbarger etc., but it is still not given as much coverage as
entries and exits, or even risk management.
