How Much Pain Before Change?

[Rande Howell]

Why do so many traders stay stuck in painful self limiting patterns rooted in fear and self doubt? It's not like your trading account will allow you to live in comfortable denial for long. Hold this question in your mind. The trader can see that what they are currently doing is not working. They acknowledge they need to do something about their fear-based trading - "they talk the talk" - but they, for some reason, can not push themselves into "walking the walk" of actually doing something about the power fear has over their trading. What's at work here?

I asked a very successful trader and teacher this question, and his reply was:

"Because the trader has not suffered enough pain." What!? I asked him to go on. "It takes tremendous pain for a trader to seek help and decide to change his ways. It was the same way for me. I'd been trading for 7 years before I finally cried out "UNCLE "- I've had enough and sought help for the psychology I was bringing to the trading room - I had blown out several large trading accounts, had declared personal bankruptcy, and was staring at my family starting to fall apart. That is what did it for me."

"Until then, I had way too much pride to admit that I was the problem - not something outside of me. It just wasn't me I was destroying - it was my family. That was rock bottom for me. I couldn't allow that - the pain was just too great. Finally, I knew I had to do something. Avoiding my pain wasn't worth it anymore. It was just a short term fix anyway. The fear kept coming back. In getting beneath the hood of my mind, I found the courage, plus the skills and tools, to face what I had spent my entire life avoiding. I know now that my fear of not measuring up created a bigger than life personna that tried to protect me from feeling my wrong-headed sense of unworthiness. "

"What's crazy is why it took me so long. I was really invested in "looking good". I much prefer who I am now than the trader I used to be. Losing is not longer a statement about me anymore. Anyone who trades professionally trains themselves to emotionally think in terms of having an edge in probabilies as they approach the uncertainty of a trade. Over time they are going to have more winners than losers and the winners will be much bigger than the losers. Calm, detached, confident, and humble. Losing or winning is no longer emotionaly charged. Confronting my fears allowed me to separate fear from uncertainty. This psychological freedom is what has allowed me to develop the trader I am today. But I had to experience pain beyond my threshold before I was willing to push through my denial and face the demons roaring like a hungry lion in my mind. Once did that, I wondered why it took me so long to do something so simple."​

What can you learn from this trader's journey into financial success and personal growth? What I want you to notice about this trader's story is how long he stayed in the denial that continued his march into pain. I also want you to notice the enormous pain he shouldered. What was the cost of his not acting to master his fear? Hundreds of thousands of dollars for sure. But you, as a trader, know the cost of not confronting and mastering your fear is much greater that dollars alone. It is the loss of your potential as a human being that is really robbed. The tragic part is that it is not the market that robs you. It is nothing outside of you. It is your fear that robs you of the potential that trading offers. This is what keeps the unsuccessful trader locked in the comfort zone of his self limiting beliefs.

How do you or how have you broken out of this biologically-wired spell fear has entranced you? Where are you at in the evolution of the trader in you?

Rande Howell

 

[Martinghoul]

Where is Joe Ross, is what I want to know...

 

[Rande Howell]

"Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that you be forgiven for anything you may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness."

Being that we are human and are biologically wired for connection to others and to be cherished, and, in my view, a purpose greater than the self, the capacity to forgive is a skill necessary for us if we desire to grow as human beings and traders.
Rande Howell

 

[Black Swan]

Where is Joe Ross, is what I want to know...

ooh you cruel man, to be fair that's way above Joe's stuff and not half bad imo. 'Cos you're a bsd you don't get stuff like this..

 

[Martinghoul]

ooh you cruel man, to be fair that's way above Joe's stuff and not half bad imo. 'Cos you're a bsd you don't get stuff like this..

I am not now, nor I hope to ever be in the future, a BSD. While some of the stuff in the post resonates with me a bit, I hate all this overly general self-help stuff with a passion. I can't help it. Joe makes me sick with his sermons, and while this is marginally better, I still don't like it.

 

[DionysusToast]

Rande - how long have you been a profitable trader?

 

[Rande Howell]

Rande - how long have you been a profitable trader?

DioysusToast
I'm a trader psychologist and have never have had passion for trading. I started working with traders a number of years ago when one showed up in my office with performance issues regarding his trading. Helping a person build their psychology forpeak performance -- this I have passion for. The trader started referring more traders to me and it grew from there. Before I knew a book was written and I became an educational content provider for The Money Show. What I like about traders is that, after they have been trading for awhile, they are highly motivated to move beyond the limitations to which their fears and greed bind them .
Rande Howell

 

[coopster]

Hmm we're getting there slowly. The book has just been mentioned!

Soon will we be getting links to subscription sites, DVD courses , seminars and training?

Or am i just being cynical ? Sorry to Rande if this is not where this is headed.

 

[Rande Howell]

Hmm we're getting there slowly. The book has just been mentioned!

Soon will we be getting links to subscription sites, DVD courses , seminars and training?

Or am i just being cynical ? Sorry to Rande if this is not where this is headed.

The truth is in the eye of the beholder. Many people simply want to stay at level of head knowledge and a discussion like this satisfies their hunger. Other people have a deeper curiosity that over rides their cynicism and decide to explore possibility beyond their comfort zone. Other people, like the trader in the story, move to a completely new world of assumption -- that they are going to have to reorganize the very fabric of their belief system for them to harness the possibility that trading offers. It depends on what you are open to.

So, from what I assess from your comments, my hope is that you find these posts entertaining, curious, and interesting. And for you, my hope is that you find value in them and can use them as you invent your journey into trading.

Meanwhile, we also live embedded in a capitalistic culture where posts like this are an element of speaking to interested listeners who seek skills and tools to steer their journey into trading with more skill. Both are true. It depends on the beholder. Take it at what ever level you are at. You are the observer of the possibilities.

Much like in trading. Trading is about the management of uncertainty. And the most powerful influence we have on the uncertainty embedded in trading is the state of mind we bring to the uncertainty. This is what shapes probability. Fearful states of mind engage uncertainty and create certain worlds of consequence. Calm disciplined states of mind interact with the exact same uncertainty and create entirely different consequences.

A question for you (actually all of you): What does cynicism bring to uncertainty? What does it open and/or close as possibilities in your trading and your lives? Is this the life you want to keep inventing?

Rande Howell

 

[Black Swan]

Hmm we're getting there slowly. The book has just been mentioned!

Soon will we be getting links to subscription sites, DVD courses , seminars and training?

Or am i just being cynical ? Sorry to Rande if this is not where this is headed.

Could be the start but who cares? For me I'd rather buy Rande's *stuff* for the library than any vendor trading programme malarky.

 

[Rande Howell]

Could be the start but who cares? For me I'd rather buy Rande's *stuff* for the library than any vendor trading programme malarky.


My work is not for the shelf. It is built to change people's lives. From the anger management for violent prisoners that I used to do to developing the mind for peak performance. I serve here by offering insight into trader's minds and what blocks them. Moving beyond insight is the person's choice. My choice is to make the offer.

Rande Howell

 

[Jason101]

A question for you (actually all of you): What does cynicism bring to uncertainty? What does it open and/or close as possibilities in your trading and your lives? Is this the life you want to keep inventing?

Rande Howell

I think he's talking directly to you DT

 

[Jason101]

I liked your post. Gambling is as much as a vice as say alcohol and drugs.

I have often heard drug addicts and alcoholics say they needed to hit rock bottom before they really wanted to quit. I guess like a gambler who thinks he is trading, he needs to hit his rock bottom before he stops gambling and starts trading.

What do you think Arabian?

 

[Rande Howell]

A field full of Bulls & Bears & you think you can make it across.
Less than 5% do but no-one will stop you from participating.

It is not a random event that 5% make it across. Some are blessed to have been born with a gift of being able to separate uncertainty from worry and fear. The vast majority are not. Uncertainty, worry, and fear naturely and developmentally become fused with one another in our neuro-circuitry and the person never developing the mindset to work with the probability of uncertainty. It stays fused to the reactiveness of fear. And because of the discomfort of facing fear -- it triggers avoidance -- traders rarely choose to redevelop their psychology (it's too touchy feely). They will invest large sums of financial capital in their platforms and methodologies, but they will avoid the emotional and psychological investment required to build an effective psychology to reach a peak performance state where platform, methodology, and psychology are synthesized into an effective trading plan. Apparently about 5% of traders grasp these fundamentals.

Having passion to learn the competence to trade effectively is a must for an evolving trader -- and the sense to listen to his pain rather than ignore it. The passion is needed to maintain the desire to change into the being who is equipped to trade effectively. Without that passion a trader simply doesn't find the motivation to become what he can be -- he stays stuck in his comfort zone waiting for change to come and never recognizing that he is the change that is required.

I see this in every trader I've worked with. Yesterday I was working with a trader who had had a terrible impulse problem in his trading. As he learned how to train his brain, he developed the habit (biological pattern) that interrupted the trigge to his impulsiveness. This required emotional labor and rote training on his part. The good news is that he has a handle on his impulsiveness now. His comment to me was this. My library shelves are full of books on trading, self help, meditation, etc -- and nothing changed by reading all those books. My head was full of knowledge about why I was not trading well, but no one taught me how to change. As a recovering alchoholic I finanally figured out that talking the talk was not going to get me past the impulsiveness, I had to walk the walk. Actually do the work that leaves to long term change. My BS, I had to leave at the door. Probably that was the hardest part -- confronting my self.

Until this guy got past his cynicism and self limiting beliefs about how change occurred, he stayed stuck in familiar pattern. That biologically mandated circuitry was highly resistent to change. And under it's influence, he could rationalize the very self limiting beliefs that fused him to continued impulse problems in his trading (and other domains in his life). His belief that "it wasn't fair" that he had to do the work of reorganizing his belief system to became a profitable trader got confronted (and hire a personal trainer to help him achieve his goal). He could continue to believe that, but the results in his trading account convinced him that this was not longer an effective belief to bring into his trading room. Life goes on with or without your reorganizing your belief system. If the feedback you're getting from trading is painful, this is the signal that tells you where you need to change.

The bears and the bulls will always be there. Crossing successful requires that a trader let go of ineffective beliefs and build ones that allow them negotiate the playing field from an empowered state of mind. To that state of mind, it's not a big deal. Just another stage in the evolution of the trader's mind.

Rande Howell