[Rande Howell]

JaySmith124

Trading will give you an excellent arena to observe yourself. So be prepared to change. At the very bottom of human psychological organization is the fundamental needs for connection (belonging) and cherishment in a context of safety. This all gets set up in our attachments to self, others, things, and greater purpose. Out of our personal disruptions to these fundamental needs comes our sense of meaning and purpose in the world. Truth is, most folks seek answers to worth, mattering, and worthiness externally through performances rather than their inherent value as a human being. The spiritiual masters have been telling us this for centuries, but it is hard to hear. Trading really exposes this. This is why trading is such a great arena for self development. It becomes impossible to avoid ineffective beliefs about the self once you accept full responsibility for what happens in your trading. I wish you well.

Rande Howell

[jaysmith124]

Originally Posted by Rande Howell »

JaySmith124

Trading will give you an excellent arena to observe yourself. So be prepared to change. At the very bottom of human psychological organization is the fundamental needs for connection (belonging) and cherishment in a context of safety. This all gets set up in our attachments to self, others, things, and greater purpose. Out of our personal disruptions to these fundamental needs comes our sense of meaning and purpose in the world. Truth is, most folks seek answers to worth, mattering, and worthiness externally through performances rather than their inherent value as a human being. The spiritiual masters have been telling us this for centuries, but it is hard to hear. Trading really exposes this. This is why trading is such a great arena for self development. It becomes impossible to avoid ineffective beliefs about the self once you accept full responsibility for what happens in your trading. I wish you well.

Rande Howell

Thanks! I feel fortunate to have found this forum and the quality post. Especially, helpful (to me) is Rande, FXgirl, and Ingot54. I hope you don't mind ZDO that it seems we have gotten off topic, but you're thread has attracted a couple good psychologists that talk the same language I have studied, and I've taken advantage of it for it has given me the feeling that I am not alone. Hearing concepts repeated in different words helps me to stay on track. Well, I took a trade this morning, and the emotion of fear/anxiety compelled me to get out for no reason. I will post it here as I did on the thread "Trading For A Living" in the money management Forum. I this reaction was the same as if I was using 2000 or 3000 shares, but I will continue with 100 for at least a week before possibly jumping to 500 shares.

[SIUYA]

someone sent me this....interesting thoughts on page 6............

Fitness landscapes and the role of the inductive process. We believe the idea of
a fitness landscape, or “adaptive landscape” is a good way to think about success
and failure in the money management business. The notion is that certain individuals
within a population are endowed with a physical or mental makeup that allows
them to thrive versus the rest of the population in a given context. A fitness landscape
is a standard way of representing such differences.
Said bluntly, some people are better suited to succeed in money management than
others, based on how their brain processes information. Paul Samuelson, the famed
economist, has called it the “performance quotient”:
“It is not ordered in heaven, or by the second law of thermodynamics, that
a small group of intelligent and informed investors cannot systematically
achieve higher mean portfolio gains with lower average variabilities. People
differ in their heights, pulchritude, and acidity. Why not their P.Q. or
performance quotient?”17
Once again, it is good news and bad news. The good news is that some investors
can systematically outperform the market. The bad news is that the skill sets of
these individuals are non-transferable. Reading those Berkshire Hathaway annual
reports is certainly pleasurable, but most people cannot put the ideas to work successfully.
The main reason money management skill sets are nontransferable is that humans
largely operate inductively, not deductively.18 While economics in general— and
finance theory in particular— has been defined through deductive models (including
rational agents, equilibrium, linearity), we know that humans attempt to reason
based on incomplete and fragmented information. While there is only one way to
be purely rational, there are infinite ways to be non-rational— and humans almost
always operate in the latter space. As the differences between investors hinge on
largely unconscious, innate and inductive factors, positive-alpha-generating money
management skills are difficult to pinpoint and to convey. It follows that various
aptitudes for investing need not be associated with formal education or intelligence
quotients.
Whether individuals who are predisposed to excel do find success is likely heavily
influenced by personal effort and coaching. Michael Jordan, the basketball star,
serves as a good example. Jordan certainly would not have been a superstar basketball
player had he not been endowed with certain physical attributes. However,
he is the greatest player in the world because his well-suited genotype was married
to hard work and good coaching.

[jaysmith124]

The conclusion (page 6)
The best antidote to this dichotomy is to be as self-aware as possible— mindful of
handed-down emotional limitations— and to stress personal strengths at the expense
of personal weaknesses.


Thanks, I want to add...

that after mindfulness of our behavioral patterns, and knowing strengths and weaknesses, it is possible to change. Most people don't know how to change, and if they did, they're not willing to change. They find that it is too much work to examine and challenge deep rooted beliefs and values.

When most people do make changes to their limitations, and behavior, they can't tell you what they did. It just happened. (like a teenager explaining why, and what, they did for to get their negative results to a CEO, or an A student, explaining how they got positive results) It comes down to how you feel. Do you feel comfortable, or uncomfortable? you can't be excited, determined, and persevere, if uncomfortable.

Most of the time, just the thought of making changes makes one feel uncomfortable. If a change means that we experience discomfort we don't want to change our habits, or beliefs.

You have to know what you want, and then get comfortable with it. A long time ago, I heard that most lottery winners are broke after 5 years. It is because they were not psychologically ready. They felt uncomfortable with such a windfall. Now, when a youngster gets picked by an NBA team, he goes through training to handle the sudden wealth. In the past many were getting into drugs, destructive behavior, and destructive spending.

I have been helped with these thoughts. I have a dollar figure that I feel I have the potential of winning out of the markets on a consistent basis. I have never sat down and spent the time to imagine, and visualize, what I will do with the money. How will I handle the budget? A landscape that is presently unprepared could be limiting me.

[steve46]

"Whether individuals who are predisposed to excel do find success is likely heavily
influenced by personal effort and coaching. Michael Jordan, the basketball star,
serves as a good example. Jordan certainly would not have been a superstar basketball
player had he not been endowed with certain physical attributes. However,
he is the greatest player in the world because his well-suited genotype was married
to hard work and good coaching."


I took this quote from Siuya's post, and I think it sums up what I believe....especially when it comes to "hard work" and "coaching"...these are my personal biases...

I prefer to be optimistic about people, (although admittedly it is sometimes difficult to sustain that optimism), and in my own life I have proven that a person can succeed if they are motivated and have access to the right tools. I am in process of proving that to a group of retail traders now, and one of the things I hope to do...is to have them post their results and their stories (success or failure as it happens) here on this site within the next 18-24 months (my estimate of how long it will take to train folks to act competently in the markets).