Trader’s Narrative

Since late last year, we’ve been bombarded with news about The Secret, a quasi-new age book and video about the ‘law of attraction’. It outlines that the circumstances and situations that you find yourself in, are brought about by you and your thoughts.

Simple. And at first glance, quiet believable.

Yet, wrong.

If you believe the author, Rhonda Byrne, the prescription for getting whatever you want in life is simple. All you have to do is repeat positive affirmations and force yourself to think positive thoughts. And poof! the universe will give you a shiny new Ferrari, or that fat offshore Swiss bank account you always wanted. If you’re in a bad situation in your life, it claims equally, it is because you’ve concentrated on the negative and ‘attracted’ bad things to your life.

Blame the Victim
First of all, for you to subscribe to this you would then have to agree with the warped notion that an innocent child somehow ‘attracts’ a sexual predator. Or that the victims of tragedies like Darfur, ‘attract’ their own demise. It isn’t the responsability of the persons perpetrating these heinous acts, but rather the very victims who suffer. So in such a philosophy we have the victim suffer twice. Once for the act itself and again for being guilty of bringing it on themselves.

Need I explain further how ludicrous such an assertion is?

Will Power - The Domain of the Conscious Mind
Second, affirmations and forcing yourself to avoid ‘negative thoughts’ is not only an exercise in futility, if it yields anything it will be the opposite. It is quite natural for our thoughts to wander during the day and cover the whole spectrum. But forcing our conscious minds to avoid something, through the use of willpower, always backfires.

I was talking with my (therapist) brother about this and he said: “Willpower is a spontaneous state of mind. It can not be forced. In fact, wanting the absence of something through willpower only intensifies the yearning for it.” No matter how powerful your willpower, you simply can not forget something by forcing yourself to do so. Rather, the more willpower you use, the worse the results. Still have doubts? Spend the next minute using your willpower to not think about a white cat.

So that explains why willpower is futile, and why the ‘law of attraction’ implemented through the conscious mind is useless. But what then is the real law of attraction? Quite simple. The real law of attraction is that our subconscious, determines most, if not all, our values, beliefs and behaviours.

Everything you have achieved is thanks to it and everything you have not achieved can be traced back to your own limiting beliefs.

Imagination - The Playground of the Subconcious Mind
But the subconscious, for all its power, is rather primitive. It obeys. It does not and can not analyze. Neither can it differentiate between real and imagined inputs like the conscious mind can. The subconscious simply assumes all is real. And since the inputs are perceived as real, they create real consequences. Even to the point of affecting physiology! If, for example, you read in vivid detail about a ripe lemon, with its thick and wrinkled yellow skin, its juice trickling down the knife edge as it is being cut and then slowly squeezing the half lemon inside your mouth… don’t be surprised if your mouth starts to water.

Our fears and beliefs use the same mechanism to affect our lives. This is how they hold such sway over us, even when they may be neither real nor logical. And why if you wish lasting and real change in your life, you must change the protocols in your subconscious that relate to it.

So eventhough I do believe that we can ‘attract’ circumstances in our life, I do not believe that it covers everything in our lives. There is certainly room for randomness in life, for tragedy and for serendipity. And most importantly it is not through the mechanism of will power or conscious thought (repeating affirmations). Rather it is through the vastly stronger and hidden subconscious mind that we create our lives.

So as a trader on a path of enlightenment, do yourself a favor and put away the shock pads and the empty affirmations & platitudes. Set yourself instead on the real path to personal development and change.

It may not be new-Agey pseudo-science/pop-psychology but it is real and it is being used by the best therapists in the world to create positive lasting change.

This is a 20 minute clip of Tony Robbins at the 2006 TED in California. TED stands for technology, entertainment and design and is an annual conference where some the most intriguing, talented and intelligent people on earth have the stage for a few minutes to share their ideas with each other and the world.

Robbins short address is filled with a wealth of insight so make sure you pay attention or you’ll miss a few nuggets. I especially liked the story from his childhood where his father decided to give one meaning and he another, to the same situation. It presents a great principle: what happens to you is inconsequential compared to the meaning you give it.

You can find the other videos of the 2006 TED here. There’s everything from religion to revamping the education system and more.

Source: Infectious Greed.

Recently, I read a blog entry on Piptopia about a trader looking for help after a negative experience. After trading on a sim, he had gone live and lost 3% of his account. This had bothered them enough to write asking for help and feedback. The loss may not seem like a lot to you or me, but for that person, it had caused some strong and painful emotions.

To the credit of Piptopia, a lot of practical advice was offered. But I want to concentrate on the first one: Get over it. I think it is important to focus on this for two reasons. First, being told to just ‘Get over it’ is not terribly useful because unless you are also told how exactly you can do that, it just sounds like a hollow platitude. The second reason is that unless you can move beyond an emotional block, all the practical advice that follows is meaningless. Sure, your conscious mind knows and can rationalize, but your subconscious mind will sabotage all of your intelligent, conscious efforts. What you need to do is to ‘reprogram’ your subconscious mind so that it acts congruently with your conscious mind.

I’m going to share a simple technique with you on how to do just that. And although you can use this for anything trading related, (for example, a trading mistake causing you to become trigger shy), it can be applied to almost all events in life which are traumatic and prevent you from moving on. You know, the kind of experience where you have trouble letting go; where you keep finding yourself remembering it over and over again; the kind of experience that causes you to feel nagative and painful emotions.

Not long ago, I used the same technique that I’m going to share with you to help a friend who was being traumatized by a severe nightmare. Within 20 minutes, the intensity of their experience was so diluted that it was manageable. And shortly after, the whole negative experience simply faded away for them.

You might be wondering, how does it work? This practical technique ‘rewires’ how your subconscious stores and gives meaning to your experience. So you no longer have to ‘Be a man, Get over it, Suck it up, etc.’

Are you ready?

How to Get Over ‘It’

There is a fascinating story in the New York Times this weekend about Lewis Gordon Pugh, a British man dubbed the Ice Bear for his amazing ability to swim in extremely cold water:

The above picture is of Lewis’ latest attempt to break the world record for cold water swimming. He accomplished it by swimming 6 lengths of a frozen lake in Norway (1200 meters) in almost 24 minutes.

It is an inspiring example of the amazing abilities of the human mind and body. As you’re reading the article, pay close attention to how Lewis constructs his own reality and dismisses naysayers who tell him he can’t do it. There is a very valuable life lesson there for all of us.

Of course, he doesn’t simply refuse to accept ‘reality’, he has a talented and competent team behind him who prepared him for his amazing feat. But he never would have been able to accomplish his goal, had he not consciously built his own reality. Whether he realizes it or not, Lewis is a student of radical constructivism.

This is the philosopy or school of thought that says that knowledge of the world does not exist per se, as objective reality. Instead, it is built or constructed by an individual through their experiences, biases, etc. This is the foundation of such diverse fields as cybernetics, artificial intelligence, hypnotherapy and NLP. This is also the underlying approach that Ari Kiev takes when he coaches traders at SAC Capital.

In the coming days I’ll share a simple and practical application of this so you can see what I mean.

Source: NY Times article: “The Ice Bear Cometh, Wearing Nothing but a Speedo”.
(Use BugMeNot to access article).