Trader’s Narrative

Most people would claim that they are the masters of their domain, that they are the ones who make choices, rationally, consciously and pehaps even scientifically. To argue this point with them would be futile. So instead of arguing, why not show you a simple exercise which may illustrate by way of an example that our decisions are made by and large by our subconscious mind - and then only after the fact, rationalized and justified by the conscious mind.

Watch:

For those who are dying to know exactly how Derren Brown did it, he does explain very superficially at the end of the video. But he does leave out important points. For example, how he anchored the positive feeling to the left shoulder, or the dominant colour of the room or the myriad circles and double circles in the decoration of the room.

As a trader, I hope this makes you think deeply about why you do certain things. From the way you think about the markets to how you arrive at decisions to buy, sell, cut losses and pare profits. These decisions may seem to you to be systematic and well thought out. But I would argue that they are by and large a product of your subconscious mind which is anything but rational.

Even traders who employ a totally systematic trading methodology (that is programmed rules for buys and sells which the computer fires off) are not free from this. For, what else, but their own mind did they use to come up with the algorithms?

I’m not trying to be alarmist or claim that what you are doing is necessarily wrong. What I do hope this will do for you is to seriously reexamine your assumptions and make you think twice about why you arrive at certain decisions and to what you attribute them to.

The subconscious is an immensely powerful master but for the most part it is hidden from its partner, the conscious mind and unfortunately, it can at times wield its power against its owner.

And the next time you find yourself trying to effect any sort of change, either within yourself or another person, stop and ask yourself. Am I trying to influence their conscious mind or their subconscious mind?

Earlier I wrote about the flaws in the idea of the law of attraction as promoted by the book “The Secret” (Rhonda Byrne). I argued that people are totally missing the real law of attraction by focusing on making conscious effort (through will power) to effect positive change in their lives. Since your subconscious mind is the real power and decision maker in your life, such efforts are either totally fruitless or worse, they tangle you up.

If you still doubt the power of the subconscious mind, watch this video. It is from a UK show starring Derren Brown. If you notice, he is speaking to the man on two levels. On one level to his conscious mind, and more importantly to his subconscious mind. Observe the results:

What you saw wasn’t magic and it wasn’t staged. There is a science behind it. Everything that the Derren Brown did was calculated and meticulously timed. And as you can guess, he got what he wanted because he spoke to the person’s subconscious - not his conscious mind. Some may retort by saying that they’ed never fall for this “trick”. I’m sure that had anyone asked the guy who falls for this (twice) he would have protested as strongly.

Its laughable to consider how much energy and effort we put towards our conscious lives and totally ignore our subconscious motivations when they are the real ‘master’. Consider for a moment how easy and effective it would be to create positive change in your own life if you spoke to your subconscious mind and asked it to give you what you wanted.

Personally, I don’t appreciate people like Derren Brown using powerful therapeutic techniques to put on a carnival side-show. But I wanted to show you this as an example of how little we realize, as we go through our day, that our subconscious is the real power shaping our lives.

To learn more about these techniques, there’s only one person’s work you need to research: Dr. Milton H. Erickson.