[Tams]

Originally Posted by Rande Howell »

Please take your own advice

Please tell us, what exactly you are selling, and how much does it cost?

[gosu]

Originally Posted by Rande Howell »

Please take your own advice

You lost me. I'm not aware I was offering advice.


From your other thread:

Originally Posted by Rande Howell »

I would want to get a better understanding of what "subconscious" forces you are talking about. Usually they are simply parts of ourself that we avoid seeing. And in trading, what we have avoided so well comes to stalk us.

What you'll notice is that the first skill set worked with is breathing and relaxation. It is these skills that keeps the brain from over reacting and we can begin to see what is actually going on in the mind that stops us from performing better.

Rande

A couple of questions for the professional advice giver:

1. How does a person who doesn't trade know "in trading, what we have avoided so well comes to stalk us"? What is the basis for this statement? It is obviously not from your own experience.

2. Breathing and relaxation while trading are well and good. But aren't the problems of not breathing and not relaxing mere symptoms and not causes of poor performance? Why is the person not breathing and not relaxing? Could it be because his emotions are telling him he is unsure what's going on?

[Rande Howell]

Originally Posted by gosu »

You lost me. I'm not aware I was offering advice.


From your other thread:



A couple of questions for the professional advice giver:

1. How does a person who doesn't trade know "in trading, what we have avoided so well comes to stalk us"? What is the basis for this statement? It is obviously not from your own experience.

2. Breathing and relaxation while trading are well and good. But aren't the problems of not breathing and not relaxing mere symptoms and not causes of poor performance? Why is the person not breathing and not relaxing? Could it be because his emotions are telling him he is unsure what's going on?

Would prefer these questions in the other forum. They are good guestions.

People could answer your number 1 for themselves. In my own observation, I have found this to be the case. Ultimately your brain has learned how to deal with uncertainty across many domains and when exposed to uncertainty in trading, it tends to fall back into familiar patterns to deal with the circumstance. This is called response generalization. In other domains of life, we can avoid knowing and stay in not knowing. Trading, this is much more difficult position to stay in. We can't maintain an illusion of control in the markets as we can in other domains.

Breathing and muscular tension are elements of an emotion. So when more acknowledged elements of an emotion (feeling and arousal for instance) show up, these elements are also present. They are also elements of an emotion that can be used to manage the intensity of the emotion so that the emotion does not reach critical mass and sweep the mind away. They are not the solution, but they are a management tool so that the brain does not get over heated by the excititory process of an emerging emotion. The meaning of associated with the emotion and triggering still has to be changed. But it is much easier to work meaning (trader's beliefs about uncertainty) when the train is in the station rather than with a full head of steam.

I used to not focus on these two elements so early in training, and without these skills, it was much more difficult to learn to think differently.

Again, these would be good guestions to pose in the other webinar. My hope is that you will post them there.

Rande Howell

[Rande Howell]

Originally Posted by Tams »

Please tell us, what exactly you are selling, and how much does it cost?

As an experiment I offered 5 scholarships to a course I teach on developing the mind for trading. It is free to them. The intent was to see if the psychology forum could really focus on the psychology behind performance in trading and stay focused on it. And I wanted to see if I could add a social learning element to a webinar course. I believe social learning is a missing element in courses where there is not a group setting. Trying to figure that out. If it can, my hope is that these can be offered more often. For more info, go to the forum where Developing Traders State of Mind is being discussed and ask questions. There, you will find people who are working through the course. My hope is that more particiapants int he course take advantage of the forum.

Rande Howell

[gosu]

Originally Posted by Rande Howell »

Would prefer these questions in the other forum. They are good guestions.

People could answer your number 1 for themselves. In my own observation, I have found this to be the case. Ultimately your brain has learned how to deal with uncertainty across many domains and when exposed to uncertainty in trading, it tends to fall back into familiar patterns to deal with the circumstance. This is called response generalization. In other domains of life, we can avoid knowing and stay in not knowing. Trading, this is much more difficult position to stay in. We can't maintain an illusion of control in the markets as we can in other domains.

Breathing and muscular tension are elements of an emotion. So when more acknowledged elements of an emotion (feeling and arousal for instance) show up, these elements are also present. They are also elements of an emotion that can be used to manage the intensity of the emotion so that the emotion does not reach critical mass and sweep the mind away. They are not the solution, but they are a management tool so that the brain does not get over heated by the excititory process of an emerging emotion. The meaning of associated with the emotion and triggering still has to be changed. But it is much easier to work meaning (trader's beliefs about uncertainty) when the train is in the station rather than with a full head of steam.

I used to not focus on these two elements so early in training, and without these skills, it was much more difficult to learn to think differently.

Again, these would be good guestions to pose in the other webinar. My hope is that you will post them there.

Rande Howell

I appreciate that you appreciate my questions. I posted them here rather than in the other thread to avoid distracting actual course participants who want to discuss what they are learning.

Regarding your reply to question 1, I do not know how you might observe this. I thought perhaps you took a survey or a lot of your customers approached you with this complaint. I was prepared to ask a follow up question which now has no point.

Regarding question 2, your reply is fair enough. I share your viewpoint that breathing and relaxing are important. My point was that they don't address underlying causes and you evidently believe that as well. As you stated, you will get to what you see as the causes soon enough.

[MightyMouse]

Originally Posted by Rande Howell »

Would prefer these questions in the other forum. They are good guestions.

People could answer your number 1 for themselves. In my own observation, I have found this to be the case. Ultimately your brain has learned how to deal with uncertainty across many domains and when exposed to uncertainty in trading, it tends to fall back into familiar patterns to deal with the circumstance. This is called response generalization. In other domains of life, we can avoid knowing and stay in not knowing. Trading, this is much more difficult position to stay in. We can't maintain an illusion of control in the markets as we can in other domains.

Breathing and muscular tension are elements of an emotion. So when more acknowledged elements of an emotion (feeling and arousal for instance) show up, these elements are also present. They are also elements of an emotion that can be used to manage the intensity of the emotion so that the emotion does not reach critical mass and sweep the mind away. They are not the solution, but they are a management tool so that the brain does not get over heated by the excititory process of an emerging emotion. The meaning of associated with the emotion and triggering still has to be changed. But it is much easier to work meaning (trader's beliefs about uncertainty) when the train is in the station rather than with a full head of steam.

I used to not focus on these two elements so early in training, and without these skills, it was much more difficult to learn to think differently.

Again, these would be good guestions to pose in the other webinar. My hope is that you will post them there.

Rande Howell

From a traders perspective, I prefer those who lose money to me to be relaxed. It is sort of like veal. The meat is a lot more tender.

[Rande Howell]

Originally Posted by MightyMouse »

From a traders perspective, I prefer those who lose money to me to be relaxed. It is sort of like veal. The meat is a lot more tender.

what you show here is what I consider to be a fundamental difference between th mindset of the basic retail trader and one who trades within the context of a trading company. Both can be successful financially, and yet they bring very different perspectives to the table.

Rande Howell