zdo

The only thing I can think of - I had moved some funds between accounts in the last few days…had a little more hassle than usual I must have been in a dream sharing mood. Told the dream to 4 others. Two went in a sexual direction with it. One went ‘Jungian’/ 'archetypical'. My wife just sipped her coffee and widened her eyes a little …

Yep. If I remember correctly Mark Douglas went through a period where a trader “just isn’t who I am anymore”. Personally, I have had my interest and energy for trading ebb and flow across the years – but the passion and love for the game thankfully persists enough for me to stay active. Also, I know there will come a day when developmentally / age I will be done with it. An older friend of mine just reported he is no longer has the interest in poker and going to Vegas twice a year like he did for years and years… I do experience a similar phenom. more with physical skills. By the time I’m good at something, the project is just finishing up and then I’m not really interested in starting more similar projects… etc.

bootstrap, Welcome back. Remember your poll? Now I would vote yes... All the best zdo

Yes, the primary ‘know thyself’ is to know what you really want from deep within, and choose it as purpose – “choosing what is chosen…” Let’s credit Blowfish, DugDug, and others for pointing that out early in the thread and Rande H. for pounding ‘true self honesty’ and 'avoiding avoidance' throughout. Uli, I over-reacted to your distilling it to the question of “Did I Worked the Plan – Yes or No?” because at this time answering that question daily doesn’t provide me with much information. Quick review I run quarters from solstice to equinox to … This quarter, in my intraday bread and butter active trading, so far I have Losing days: 1 - Jan 8 Trading mistakes / off plan: 2 - One corrected immediately. The other I focused in and worked my way out of . It’s been over a year since I made a real bonehead mistake like ‘staying with a loser till it comes back’ etc. Execution mistakes: 2 - Both corrected almost in the same breath they were made. Results: Entries – Most are immaculate. Some are a tick off from where they should be. A few are 2 ticks. Not very susceptible to jumping in early – an issue in the past. Exits- Have been exiting profitable trades a little earlier than usual plan, but daily range and swing sizes haven’t been exactly large lately so can’t really don’t call that not following plan - it is what it is. 90% of time was glad I did get out. Happy with where I’ve been taking losses too – ahead of stops usually. Bottom line is running about 0.2 – 0.3 % less than long term average daily net net. My ‘prayer’ - Give me some wild days to play and I’ll ‘fix’ that in a couple days… Comments: I have cumulative 3 - 5 hours truly in ‘flow’ this quarter. However, large percentages of each day’s sessions are spent in the zone, in near intuitive trading (for me), glance and click decisions, in acceptance of results and self. Trading “emotions” – steady, no anger, angst, or suffering this quarter – so far . It has generally been ‘fun’ and trading has virtually no reach or duration outside my personal trading sessions. Basically, folks, I’ve got my ’10,000 hours’ in – and, yes, many of them were tough and painful. Answering that “Did I work the plan?” question at the end of the trading day is truly important and I don’t want to discount it - but it does not get me to the subtleties and depth I need to explore right now and actually have always needed to explore -- hint hint noobies. With that vitae, Uli, I really appreciate having you around. You can depend on knowing at least one person is listening to your posts. Type it in … and thanks! I had a dream last night. The dream ego had three little fish in a bag / bowl and a series of dream obstacles to getting them to the main tank that had 1 other fish waiting and bubbles going etc. My wife was for a time involved in leading me / misleading d.e. to the location of the tank, etc. During the process, the dream ego was concerned about the condition and survival of the 3 fish and was considering whether it was best to just dump the fish in or let them ride in the bag till water temperatures matched when the tank was ‘located’ … All the best

re “We can become observers of the thought patterns (what I call voices on the stage of the self) and begin to choose which part of our internal dialog we feed and nuture” Rande, are you talking subpersonalities here? thx

re: “Regardless of how you define "knowing thyself," in trading there is only one measurement for me, and this is the most important thing in my journal: Did I follow my plan? Yes/No. Few things are so black & white.” and re: “If you're on plan and profitable, then your psychological plan is proceeding in an effective direction.” I’m not so sure about that emphasis on bottom line as an indicator of know thyself for traders I know a guy who is all over the bottom line, it’s admirable how extremely well he sticks to his plans, and he quickly built a small fortune – but he is seriously low on a ‘know thyself’ / insight about himself scale … and that has now shown up in the last year or so in his failure to adapt… Ulli, you mentioned plan. Well, one of the reasons behind starting this thread was noticing some subtle cyclicity / variability in my own ease of implementing sound proven plans. I could ignore that, measure my knowing self via the bottom line, etc. work with it in standard ways – or I could ask questions and explore the whole... and maybe there are a couple others who could benefit from such an exploration. Every nth post someone comes along and basically tells us to get practical again and stop mucking around in what has of late unfolded as an exploration of developmental stuff Rande mentioned ‘story’… Has this material changed my narrative re my development as a trader (before I started trading)? Not yet. But… Has this material threatened others’ narratives? I take ‘what you are discussing is wrong’ posts as symptoms of that. This thread is for a few. There are huge crowds of bottom line, plan, discipline, edge threads to be ‘practical’ in… Not a slam Ulli because you are one of the best posters on this forum... Just a reminder that a few of us want to explore some things and shepherding us back to the more objective fields is really off topic…

Awesome posting! Many thanks to both of you. Does Primary Process developmentally end ? Or does it just go unconscious (and run in parallel) ?

FxGirl, Please see Post # 4 http://www.traderslaboratory.com/forums/f37/change-thyself-7646.html#post91784

Hi all, fxGirl, from the 'Know thyself' thread re your post: “You said that you insist that traders develop their own systems, but for a different reason. I’d be interested in what that reason is." I have a co-mingled list of reasons but at the core, I think the following says it far better than I could ever say it (Note: all bracketed content is mine) From The Path of Least Resistance (revised, second edition 1989) Robert Fritz If you haven’t read this book I highly recommend it. If you have read it, time to ‘dust it off’ in the light of trading development…

LOL you're killing me Coming to a forum near you Touch yourself What is the state of the art for traders? It was mostly to show fxGirl how easy it is to start a thread. Separating them will just result in a different kind of mess than the usual messes we make :helloooo: Actually, while they all go together, there are important distinctions...

My impressions of that Tube: Noted a conspicuous absence of content about the importance of intrinsic interest, drive, passion, for an activity… maybe that’s so obvious it doesn’t need mention for most… ...And I see what they are getting at with the whole ‘talent is overrated’ theme. On many levels, one could say the talent IS the passion for it instead of the innate capacities to build skills... But I also think they may be discounting talent ( as defined above - finer innate capacities to build skills) just a little bit too much. For example, in the piece one of the coaches said something to the effect of “let me work with the weakest quarterback…and I’ll show you that talent is overrated”. Don’t they realize that ‘worst guy in camp’ still has more native QB talent than 99% of the humans on the planet?

“Change thyself” For traders, what is the ‘state of the art’?

Hi, fxGirl, re “whole body dysfunctions” One way of progressing here, while keeping it nervous system / wet ware oriented, is to see the whole of the nervous system as ‘the brain’ leads to Think Twice: How the Gut's "Second Brain" Influences Mood and Well-Being: Scientific American etc. While it is ok to just stay CNS oriented, I was taking it even further. Still in the realm of biology, the ‘brains’ (as whole nervous system) have little lasting modulation capacity over binding in the fascia ‘bags’, sensory motor amnesia, the ‘stress arousal syndrome’ in general, or even over residual muscle tension, etc. – all conditions whose absence is crucial to flow, frequent entry into the ‘zone’, or just plain ole performance at a high level. Then beyond empirical ‘biology’ (but still in and of the magno-electric spectrum) we are of many bodies. Some of them ‘non local’… Only a tiny % think these conditions have any effect at all on trading performance. I have found they have tremendous impact on trading (and all) performance. “Until we learn to manage our biology, our psychology will be overwhelmed.” Rande Howell Will get to your other comments as time and energy permits. Am also starting a ‘Change thyself’ thread. Please fire away. zdo

FxGirl, My first reaction - This is a ‘know thyself’ not a ‘change thyself’ thread. It was founded on curiosity about differing perspectives on the latest in ‘know thyself’ / 'aware thyself' stuff to deepen our understanding of humans in general for traders in particular, etc - with some license of a little bit of questioning and discussion of ‘dynamics’ btw. Our posts about “psycho dynamics”, “unconscious conflicts, fusional complexes, dissociation, etc” may be worthless to you and most likely millions of other traders – but I really appreciate them. So I’m not that sure we need to push all that aside in every single thread without exception, cut these amateur discussions, and just ‘change behaviors’… Besides, there are no threads on the internet anywhere about that . Let’s kill this thread now so we don’t interfere. Please forgive us TL. Hello ET. re: “if all we do is “be present”” That was sharing about my own labors and challenges of working with others. You’re a professional. I’m not. Let’s face it, I simply could never be a professional … Out the gate I’ve got incredibly low tolerance for the time it takes someone to even briefly talk about themselves, their ‘feelings’, etc. (and I love it when someone can get right to succinctly describing and working on the ‘behaviors’…) Just because I have to work issues like being nonjudgmental, or even listening at all, etc doesn’t mean in the least that in my sessions we don’t WORK hard start to finish. I push my peeps a whole lot damn harder than any ‘professional’ dares - and if you don’t believe me PM me and I’ll clear it with the one of them and you can ask him yourself what we did to help him change his own ‘brain’, remove unwanted states, etc…Ask him if there was any long term waiting around for insights… re: “suffering from varying degrees of brain dysfunction” Excellent point. I was hankering at this in ‘Other areas to consider’ post herein a while back However, I think if you stick with it you’ll ultimately find that it’s not just brain dysfunctions. It’s even better seen as whole body dysfunctions, of which changing the ‘brains’ is only a (major) part… re: “The prevailing way of thinking about trading begins with the assumption that you have to develop your own system” Au contraire! If we could accurately sample the trading population more likely we would find that > 80% have little interest in developing their own system (especially for the reasons I encourage it). Rather they are just looking for something that works right now – thinking that will sustain them across time. In addition, whether they are upfront about it or not, most trading coaches and psychologists would prefer a client assimilate the coach’s own system. All system vendors, including the ones who provide the ‘free’ psychology guidance, definitely operate with the opposite of that ‘assumption’. So I’m challenging your attribution that developing your own system is “he prevailing way of thinking” in the industry … and re “the only way to truly learn how the market works” : That is not anywhere near the top of the list of why I insist that traders should develop their own systems. On topic herein is not really about the ‘changing’ part of the process ( but content about that is for the most part accepted.) Rather, on topic is more about the ‘awareness’ parts of the process…In this thread, we are not "trying to impact at a limited, specific set of behaviors". And it really is ok for you to initiate threads fxGirl and contributions about ‘brain changing’ would be much appreciated here and from many others I’m sure… All the best

Thanks, Blowfish. Could you provide us references for the relavent articles?

Most likely. Look at declarations for most of the array sizes. You may have to oversize some of the arrays... hth

That was a flippant association. I know virtually nothing about fusion and just enough about attachment theory to be damaging. – but at that moment somewhere the two seemed obtusely connected. Object relations are fundamental to attachment styles (Ainsworth, et al) and… I was making guesses that less adaptive attachment styles would be more susceptible to the pitfalls of fusions – and I don’t know what those pitfalls are so this is really profound and groundbreaking right? Would welcome insights and references. thx. Some traders bring vulnerabilities to the table that most other traders can’t even imagine exist – evidenced by thousands upon thousands of disjointed trading psychology conversations on the internet where one player tries to reveal and process an issue and other players come back with one of the forms of ‘just be disciplined you dumbass’ John, Great questions – but to be honest, I’m having some trouble relating to them as a whole. Here’s why. At no charge I mentor one person at a time until s/he ends it and I don’t accept traders who don’t already have an edge. Example: In the relationship just previous to the current one I literally never knew exactly what his edge was… unbelievable to me too, in immediate curiosity almost slipped and asked a couple of times, but refraining helped keep the issues right in front of him *… In the active 14 month part of that relationship we never did anything but process polarities and conflicts and clear limbic dissonance. You ask what I “see” . To generalize - I see great POTENTIAL… and …. I see great DENIAL!. I see real risk taking! …and….I see desperately tenacious grips on some weird and unnecessary levels of homeostasis! I see brilliance! … and… I see some SERIOUSLY F’d UP mental ‘mapping’! I see strange otherness… and… I see a mirror Truth is more important than trading… It’s taken me a while but I’m finally getting at least adequate at simply being present for the other person. Feels good in the moment but ultimately a session is degraded if I’ve offered even the slightest tidbit of advice - even if asked. With varying success, I practice at narrowing to just one question per session that can’t be answered rationally or immediately, but will be answered in time…. not a teacher, not a coach, not even a mentor – mostly just a processing facilitator… So “Can you show them a way to find their edge ?” No I personally can not. I can offer some encouragement on line right here. But ultimately each individual must take on a Thomas Edision like identity and put on blinders to all else… I liken edges to pants. I know I don’t want to be wearing yours and hopefully you don’t want to be wearing mine. Just as important – they’re also not likely to fit! I’m hard core on this - Build your own base extremely independently and then only when that is accomplished look to others for refinements and enhancements. And run the ‘inner work’ in parallel…not as a remedial afterthought Whoops - even though I have taken all your questions to heart, this whole post turned out to be more of a rant to newbies than a solid response to you (and it only cost me ~4100 USD :missy: ) * I can pretty safely infer his entries were based on retracements in trend … the main point is over all those months we never explicitly discussed it, ie he never described it… Check my posts, I rarely discuss specifics about edges online either… “it's not what you say it's what they hear” anyways – makes most edge sharing a complete waste of time…

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPACS8ogqus]YouTube - Enroll Yourself in the Genius Factory[/ame]

JBW, Dug, et al, This is some real meat. Anyone got some Attachment Theory associations to add ? Evocative, conflict poducing, denial triggering, and resistance engendering and I have not even begun to work on it yet... Thanks a lot.

“Victory Destroys Knowledge” Dan John.

good question what are the ts 'rules' for creating range bars? and what interval are you using? #___ ? ticks? thx

“Flow thyself” For traders, what is the ‘state of the art’?

Many make trading just a simple ‘decision’ process. “There are just four kinds of bets. There are good bets, bad bets, bets that you win, and bets that you lose. Winning a bad bet can be the most dangerous outcome of all, because a success of that kind can encourage you to take more bad bets in the future. You can also lose a good bet, but if you keep placing good bets, over time, the law of averages will be working for you.” Larry Hite, a successful trend trader. As James has been banging at – how much do we really need to fathom the depths of our souls to do that? One short answer is – some of us more than others. Another short answer – it’s not how good you are but how good you want to be. “First things first” Another short answer – a trader who know’s himself at the beginning will be able to sort through the “trading education” material much more efficiently and quickly find edges that match his or her nature… Two specific questions triggered me to broaden the questioning out to the old general saw ‘know thyself’ stuff and start the thread. In my own processes, I noticed varying awareness of when I was susceptible to making trading mistakes / poor decisions and was asking the horrible question of ‘why?’ Then, in another trader who I mentor, I observed a cyclic variability in his subjective awareness of incentives which really had impact on his consistency and (maybe falsely) concluded that sustaining a consistently sufficient level of in the moment awareness of incentives is more important than what the actual incentives are or even being aware of the particulars of one’s incentives. Anyways, those questions reminded me again of the whole ‘know thyself’ area… So moving the questioning a little bit - What is the best of ‘know thyself’? …a few responses to some of your posts Could you expand on these a little bit? Thanks. First, I would modify "Every one gets what the want from the market". to "Every one gets what they intend from the market". My experience with mentoring described above convinced me that for many, it’s not the broad incentives that are at issue. Rather, it’s the subtleties and vagaries of keeping them in awareness during one’s ‘trading session’… see first things first comments above and below. This “only need to know the bits” sort of goes to an approach of doing your very best with what is conscious and assuming the unconscious will take care of itself ? re: That makes workable sense and 700 gurus can’t be wrong! But, for me, that order proved to be sub optimal. After years of faithfully doing just that, something a Jungian therapist turned trader once said triggered me to take a much more deliberative and balanced approach. I learned to build a practice of immediately following self work with edge work and of immediately following edge work with self work…building a habit of immediately following progress in either ‘side’ with serious, value finding (not problem solving) questions about the most recent progression’s implications to the other side. Because often there is no immediate apparent connection with the other, (ie for me, JBWt’s “mirrors” are more often than not, difficult to attenuate to), this kind of work is more arduous - but it brings geometric returns. Your 'system' is found within you as much as it is found objectively. re metaphors in general, and I’ve grown quite wary of all the trading metaphors I ever had. For the last 10 years or so, my practice is to kill all my trading metaphors when they occur to me. I rarely encourage others to do the same and paradoxically, the practice has actually made me more ‘compassionate’ about other’s trading metaphors… Other areas to consider - Personal genetics. Not many ‘subjective’ ways to know thyself on this one except by tendencies. I theorize that we may have several distinct genetically ‘determined’ variances in amygdale reactivity and influence. If you watched the Neurology and Art video, subtle cross wiring in neighborhoods of the brain could result in patterns in one trader that another trader simply has no chance of ever relating to or understanding. I suspect there are several, if not many, other distinct genetic typings for perception idiosyncrasies, managing uncertainty, even possibly whether we are with trend or contrary, etc. But testing for these markers not so far fetched anymore. Biofeedback - realtime HEG, GSR, HRV – also not so far fetched anymore Enculturation. Enculturation is a fairly fat term for what goes on in this area. The simple term ‘Learning’ could be used but I prefer enculturation because it alludes more to the slippage from flow a child surrenders to - to join the culture. fxGirl mentioned meditation. From the ‘east’, Lao Tzu councils us to unlearn all the reactive patterns we learned through the years and relearn through observation. This way we understand why it is best to do a certain thing based on certain conditions. ..."neurons that fire together, stay together." so much of what we do in meditation, mindfulness, qi gong, etc is deconstructing previously wired sympathetic responses and ‘wiring’ / grooving new parasympathetic pathways...once conditioned responses weaken we can truly interact with the actual environment …”If we react the same way to similar conditions we actually are establishing something close to an instinct. And I think that this is not good… ” some taoist bum. I am opening a sibling thread - similar title... All the best and again thanks for all the posts.

Barely on topic…re state of the "art" 'cross wiring...' ‘staggering diversity…” ‘difference between interest and passion…’ “explaining an enigma with a metaphor...” Biology, Psychology, Art – V. S. Ramachandran – " Neurology & Art " ..."neurons that fire together, stay together.", etc making a case for vsa-like conspiracies in what is produced for traders to see? I appreciate all the posts. It was not intentionally a "drive by OP". Will make some time to respond and hopefully contribute…

“Know thyself” For traders, what does that include? What is the ‘state of the art’?