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Windlesham1
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Socrates-wish you well,and speedy recovery.Once again thanks to all here.
china white
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SOCRATES - espero k estes bien che! get well soon mate!
Windlesham1
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I'm not trading this week-first time for over a year.I've had a dismal July,and at the behest of many,I'm loafing around like a civil servant(sorry!). I consider any purchase/action to better one's trading is an investment in oneself-after all,I am the most important element in my trading strategy.-It's just that puritanical guilt...........
StockBaron
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Adding my very best wishes for a speedy recovery to our main man Socrates.
Meanwhile, for those like me who sorely miss his pearls of wisdom, over on elitetrader site, there is a "Chief Wizard" who writes just like our Socrates. But it can't be him because their CW joined them and has been posting over there for exactly the period our Socrates has been too unwell to post here.
Strange, though.
Meanwhile, for those like me who sorely miss his pearls of wisdom, over on elitetrader site, there is a "Chief Wizard" who writes just like our Socrates. But it can't be him because their CW joined them and has been posting over there for exactly the period our Socrates has been too unwell to post here.
Strange, though.
SOCRATES
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Yes and he has late at night been busy but not so busy straightening things out and putting things right for our dear American cousins over there across The Pond, who must not be neglected either because they are very fond of him and he has a huge following over there too even if Windmill does not like it.
We are now going to proceed this afternoon with the next round of discussions that will benefit the clever, the honest, the industrious, and all those wishing seriously to progress.
We are now going to proceed this afternoon with the next round of discussions that will benefit the clever, the honest, the industrious, and all those wishing seriously to progress.
SOCRATES
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Let us get back to the topic of developing a persona for the purpose of trading. A lot of nonsense is written about mindset but never ina way that specifically helps to develop the correct mindset for a trader. There are lots of books written about Psychology and so on but none of them are able to pinpoint the correct route to be followed.
This is because trading is a unique profession. Succesful traders do not have psychological problems, they have overcome their problems on the route and as a consequence of being successful, therefore practitioners do not get the opportunity to counsel successful traders because successful traders do not need counselling, having long ago cracked it for themselves.
In consequence of this practitioners are only apt to encounter the unsuccessful ones, and as a consequence, develop the wrong yardstick with which to measure all this. Also, as the successful ones do not have problems to air, no one really gets to know why it is they do not have problems.
In addition to this trading is very personal and experiential, therefore the practitioner will not have the experience of being successful himself or herself specifically in this particular field, and therefore will not know what to look for, what to avoid, what is the yardstick and ultimately, what is the desired mental state to be summoned on command, at will.
In consequence of this,and additionally, the practitioner will not have the correct template, which is an abstract template, which is the result of having the knowledge and experience, and thus being able to replicate the correct template in others, or at least trying to do so in a structured and effective manner.
In addition, as the trader who asks for help in solving his problems does not know how or from where these problems emanate, is not able to clearly explain in a way that a practitioner willing to help, can constructively understand accept and monitor, to the positive benefit of his client.
And, in addition, the practitioner will have experience in many other fields and sub fields of counselling,
but all of them so far removed from the abstract reality of the problems faced by traders that their knowledge and background would actually prove to be a hindrance instead of a benefit.
All of these inabilities on the practitioner side are typical but not an exhaustive list of problems.
What I have just mentioned above relates to only one side of the equation. The other side of the equation deals with the inabilities of the client. These inabilities are further exacerbated because the client is not able either to deal with his or her inabilities nor to be able to pinpoint them correctly.
The result is a tragic comedy type of situation in which there are two individuals trying to solve a problem but neither understands it fully or is capable of solving it. In the series of discourses that follow, we are going to leave out the practitioner. The client is going to do it for himself. It is a tricky and difficult excercise that can take a long time or not, depending on the level of absolute cooperation offered.
Standing in the way of us achieving our objective, there are many obstacles. These obstacles are not immediately recognisable or identifiable. In addition they are booby trapped in a way to prevent us from recognising or identifying them. It is a very difficult problem, but it is solvable. I have solved it for myself, on my own. It is very hard work, and often tedious and sometimes even unpleasant, but if you want to truly succeed as a trader, it has to be done.
I am willing to help anyone who is willing to progress. I am not willing to help the opposite. In fact, I have the ability to punish, and punish severely I might add, simply by diverting my attention to what else is worthwhile and by remaining silent and by withdrawing my help. From now on it is up to you. We are going to proceed in the days, weeks and months that follow to change the way you respond think and act, from a negative destructive posture to a positive constructive posture. But you have to cooperate. I cannot do it all on my own.
This is because trading is a unique profession. Succesful traders do not have psychological problems, they have overcome their problems on the route and as a consequence of being successful, therefore practitioners do not get the opportunity to counsel successful traders because successful traders do not need counselling, having long ago cracked it for themselves.
In consequence of this practitioners are only apt to encounter the unsuccessful ones, and as a consequence, develop the wrong yardstick with which to measure all this. Also, as the successful ones do not have problems to air, no one really gets to know why it is they do not have problems.
In addition to this trading is very personal and experiential, therefore the practitioner will not have the experience of being successful himself or herself specifically in this particular field, and therefore will not know what to look for, what to avoid, what is the yardstick and ultimately, what is the desired mental state to be summoned on command, at will.
In consequence of this,and additionally, the practitioner will not have the correct template, which is an abstract template, which is the result of having the knowledge and experience, and thus being able to replicate the correct template in others, or at least trying to do so in a structured and effective manner.
In addition, as the trader who asks for help in solving his problems does not know how or from where these problems emanate, is not able to clearly explain in a way that a practitioner willing to help, can constructively understand accept and monitor, to the positive benefit of his client.
And, in addition, the practitioner will have experience in many other fields and sub fields of counselling,
but all of them so far removed from the abstract reality of the problems faced by traders that their knowledge and background would actually prove to be a hindrance instead of a benefit.
All of these inabilities on the practitioner side are typical but not an exhaustive list of problems.
What I have just mentioned above relates to only one side of the equation. The other side of the equation deals with the inabilities of the client. These inabilities are further exacerbated because the client is not able either to deal with his or her inabilities nor to be able to pinpoint them correctly.
The result is a tragic comedy type of situation in which there are two individuals trying to solve a problem but neither understands it fully or is capable of solving it. In the series of discourses that follow, we are going to leave out the practitioner. The client is going to do it for himself. It is a tricky and difficult excercise that can take a long time or not, depending on the level of absolute cooperation offered.
Standing in the way of us achieving our objective, there are many obstacles. These obstacles are not immediately recognisable or identifiable. In addition they are booby trapped in a way to prevent us from recognising or identifying them. It is a very difficult problem, but it is solvable. I have solved it for myself, on my own. It is very hard work, and often tedious and sometimes even unpleasant, but if you want to truly succeed as a trader, it has to be done.
I am willing to help anyone who is willing to progress. I am not willing to help the opposite. In fact, I have the ability to punish, and punish severely I might add, simply by diverting my attention to what else is worthwhile and by remaining silent and by withdrawing my help. From now on it is up to you. We are going to proceed in the days, weeks and months that follow to change the way you respond think and act, from a negative destructive posture to a positive constructive posture. But you have to cooperate. I cannot do it all on my own.
Show us the way Socrates
SOCRATES
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Let us start. We are first of all going to examine the human persona. We are going to do so from a very unusual point of view. We have to do this in order to get a perspective which is not the one we are normally accustomed to.
It is as if we stepped outside ourselves and viewed our very selves in the sort of way we would look at a curious insect doing something that we are observing. In other words, we are going to observe the self.
If we do not start by observing the self we would never be able to get a handle on what it is that makes us tick. We have to get at the mechanism that does the ticking in order to begin to unravel and understand how and why it works.
Would it not be a curious and uncomfortable exercise if we were able to step outside our bodies and be able to look at ourselves as others see us ? We cannot do that but we can do the next best thing. That is to imagine we are someone else looking at us. This is already a difficult thing to do. It makes us feel very uncomfortable, creepy. Why is this ?
It is because the Human Persona or HP is AWARE it is under scrutiny and feels UNCOMFORTABLE with this idea. Why ? In the discourses that follow we are going to find out why and how to do this. The HP is "armoured" against this kind of tinkering. What kind of "armouring" is this and do we wear it all the time ? It appears that this "armouring" we shall call A1, to stand for "armouring one". appears and disappears. It immediately appears to "protect us" form tinkering in a sort of "alert form", or AF, which is a state of "Instant readiness" or IR, and then when it is no longer "percieved" (P1) to be needed recoils, "imperceptively" (P2) dissipates.....fades.....and it was as if it never happened. Curious is it not ?
Do this preliminary excercise and note how it makes you "feel". It is important to do this so you can establish that this feeling exists in tangible reality, i.e., it is" feels very real". None of this is science fiction, although at first it may seem arcane or irrelevant to you, you must do this excercise on yourself in order to create a basis from which to progress.
Choose a quiet place in which you are not going to be disturbed and do it, then we will continue on our journey to prepare the mind to create the Trading Persona, or TP which is the ideal and desired condition we need to have when we are trading, and not the HP, which is the one we use in daily life, that cannot and will not cope with the information shocks that trading delivers to the trader or aspiring trader.
It is as if we stepped outside ourselves and viewed our very selves in the sort of way we would look at a curious insect doing something that we are observing. In other words, we are going to observe the self.
If we do not start by observing the self we would never be able to get a handle on what it is that makes us tick. We have to get at the mechanism that does the ticking in order to begin to unravel and understand how and why it works.
Would it not be a curious and uncomfortable exercise if we were able to step outside our bodies and be able to look at ourselves as others see us ? We cannot do that but we can do the next best thing. That is to imagine we are someone else looking at us. This is already a difficult thing to do. It makes us feel very uncomfortable, creepy. Why is this ?
It is because the Human Persona or HP is AWARE it is under scrutiny and feels UNCOMFORTABLE with this idea. Why ? In the discourses that follow we are going to find out why and how to do this. The HP is "armoured" against this kind of tinkering. What kind of "armouring" is this and do we wear it all the time ? It appears that this "armouring" we shall call A1, to stand for "armouring one". appears and disappears. It immediately appears to "protect us" form tinkering in a sort of "alert form", or AF, which is a state of "Instant readiness" or IR, and then when it is no longer "percieved" (P1) to be needed recoils, "imperceptively" (P2) dissipates.....fades.....and it was as if it never happened. Curious is it not ?
Do this preliminary excercise and note how it makes you "feel". It is important to do this so you can establish that this feeling exists in tangible reality, i.e., it is" feels very real". None of this is science fiction, although at first it may seem arcane or irrelevant to you, you must do this excercise on yourself in order to create a basis from which to progress.
Choose a quiet place in which you are not going to be disturbed and do it, then we will continue on our journey to prepare the mind to create the Trading Persona, or TP which is the ideal and desired condition we need to have when we are trading, and not the HP, which is the one we use in daily life, that cannot and will not cope with the information shocks that trading delivers to the trader or aspiring trader.
SOCRATES
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I am sorry, I forgot to add, that this examination of self should not be done when looking at a screen when trading, later on I will explain why, this is very important that at this stage such a blunder should be avoided. What you should do is to "artificially replicate" or AR. This means you ought to replicate the idea of looking at something that puzzles or intrigues you but is not connected to trading. Therefore you should choose something very similar but not the same. The ideal prop for this would be a television screen, showing something not connected with trading such as a cartoon, or a documentary, or a comedy, or a discussion, anything that replicates you "puttting your attention" on what is VISUAL.. Now do the excercise as described above. In order to best summon the A1 imagine yourself looking critically at yourself looking at the screen, and observe how it makes you feel. Try to pinpoint the arrival of AF.
You ain't gonna like this.
BUT any religion, because in your tendentious manner that is what you you are proposing, that begins by staring at a TV screen to realise some degree of self awareness, has no merits whatsover. Rather stare at the strars on a dark night, and then try and summon up the A1(!)
You are right that a heightened state off self awareness is useful in trading....it is useful in life per se. There are many routes to achieve this, and starting by watching TV is not one of them.
.
And I am sorry, but trading is NOT a unique profession, unless you mean it as a sole profession rather than being one of a kind.
I hope the book is coming on well.
BUT any religion, because in your tendentious manner that is what you you are proposing, that begins by staring at a TV screen to realise some degree of self awareness, has no merits whatsover. Rather stare at the strars on a dark night, and then try and summon up the A1(!)
You are right that a heightened state off self awareness is useful in trading....it is useful in life per se. There are many routes to achieve this, and starting by watching TV is not one of them.
.
And I am sorry, but trading is NOT a unique profession, unless you mean it as a sole profession rather than being one of a kind.
I hope the book is coming on well.
SOCRATES
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No, I don't mind at all. Religion does not come into this at all. It may trigger ideas in some people whose religion includes the worship of Graven Images as part of its structure, but that may be incidental. What is not incidental is trying to use religion for the purpose of trading. I had one chap who never put on a trade without going on his knees and crossing himself and so on, because he believed this would help him get it right. His belief was so strongly rooted it actually prevented him from doing what he had to do, which was to come to terms with himself and what it was the market was presenting to him, so in all these respects I do not disagree with you.
You are not going to succeed in summoning the A1 by staring at the stars. Staring at stars does not carry any emotional charge. You have to put your attention on yourself putting your attention on something capable of carrying emotional charge. for this reason star gazing is not suitable. You need to put your attention on something different. I suggested the TV set because it is a screen, because what may be displayed has a chance of carrying emotional charge for the viewer, but not in a way that would impair you when you next look at another screen, this time a trading screen. This is because you must not allow the memory of the experience of looking at the TV screen in order to achieve what I explain above to to pop up again when you face a trading screen. Remember that the HP is armoured. It is armoured in order to prevent you from what it perceives to be you carrying out anything which it perceives to be life threatening in any way, however remote or nonsensical.
You have got it the wrong way round, as you are viewing this from the point of view ot the HP.
Heightened sense of awareness is useful in life per se.....but absolutely crucial in trading.
Many people are not aware of the possibility that awareness can be heightened, they do not understand and see it as not necessary. But when I progress with these discourses you will then grasp why a heightene sense of awarenes is so important.
I completely disagree that trading is not a unique profession. It is the most unique of professions. For this reason you will never be able to enrol in any university or polytechnic tthat can offer an absolutely complete education in this topic, whereas you can enrol for any other proffession in any other arena of your choice. The professinon of trading is not an open agenda for everyone to benefit from, whatever you may initially think. It is a closed profession. It is purported not to be so, but it is, and for this reason I am not writing any book, not because I cannot, but because I do not want to.
Kind Regards.
You are not going to succeed in summoning the A1 by staring at the stars. Staring at stars does not carry any emotional charge. You have to put your attention on yourself putting your attention on something capable of carrying emotional charge. for this reason star gazing is not suitable. You need to put your attention on something different. I suggested the TV set because it is a screen, because what may be displayed has a chance of carrying emotional charge for the viewer, but not in a way that would impair you when you next look at another screen, this time a trading screen. This is because you must not allow the memory of the experience of looking at the TV screen in order to achieve what I explain above to to pop up again when you face a trading screen. Remember that the HP is armoured. It is armoured in order to prevent you from what it perceives to be you carrying out anything which it perceives to be life threatening in any way, however remote or nonsensical.
You have got it the wrong way round, as you are viewing this from the point of view ot the HP.
Heightened sense of awareness is useful in life per se.....but absolutely crucial in trading.
Many people are not aware of the possibility that awareness can be heightened, they do not understand and see it as not necessary. But when I progress with these discourses you will then grasp why a heightene sense of awarenes is so important.
I completely disagree that trading is not a unique profession. It is the most unique of professions. For this reason you will never be able to enrol in any university or polytechnic tthat can offer an absolutely complete education in this topic, whereas you can enrol for any other proffession in any other arena of your choice. The professinon of trading is not an open agenda for everyone to benefit from, whatever you may initially think. It is a closed profession. It is purported not to be so, but it is, and for this reason I am not writing any book, not because I cannot, but because I do not want to.
Kind Regards.
Interesting, I do not think we are a million miles apart. I have used TM and yoga for many years, as well as traded for 2 decades or more.
I disagree that staring at stars does not carry an emotional charge. On the contrary, it carries the highest emotional charge, it is after all from whence we came. The emotional charge of a TV programme in comparison is shallow and manipulated by the creator of the programme, it is not a truly felt emotion at all, rather a photograph of what an emotion might be.
I agree that heightened self awareness is crucial in trading.
As for the uniqueness of trading- still have a problem with this. The fact there is no uni course that will teach you what you need to know does not in my mind make it unique, any more than a uni course in creative writing will make you an author. I believe it is unique in one sense however, it is best pursued alone.
regards
Jimbo
I disagree that staring at stars does not carry an emotional charge. On the contrary, it carries the highest emotional charge, it is after all from whence we came. The emotional charge of a TV programme in comparison is shallow and manipulated by the creator of the programme, it is not a truly felt emotion at all, rather a photograph of what an emotion might be.
I agree that heightened self awareness is crucial in trading.
As for the uniqueness of trading- still have a problem with this. The fact there is no uni course that will teach you what you need to know does not in my mind make it unique, any more than a uni course in creative writing will make you an author. I believe it is unique in one sense however, it is best pursued alone.
regards
Jimbo
SOCRATES
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Perfect ! But you see as you have made an efffort to develop your awareness and therefore what is able to carry an emotional charge for you is different to what is able to carry an emotional charge for other people who hve not chosen your route. It is a matter of development, and stages of development.
The idea of isolation in order to perfect what has to be perfected is very important in relation to attaining realisations. Poeple are not accustomed to doing this, to them it seems self punishing as in ordinary life, to be sociable is the norm, as it is viewed as a catalyst to progress, but not in this.
Therefore when people get into knitting circles because they believe that sharing is the route, they damage themselves because they are at risk of misdirecting each other by doing the opposite of what it is they ought to be doing.They are certain to damage themselves and their peers irreparably by missing out on the benefits of realisations engendered by self imposed solitary reflection.
This is because inadvertently or otherwise the ideas shared emanate via the HP and not the TP, and in consequence are doomed to fail, only for the purposes of trading, effectively, repeatedly, on command, at will, nothing else.
The idea of isolation in order to perfect what has to be perfected is very important in relation to attaining realisations. Poeple are not accustomed to doing this, to them it seems self punishing as in ordinary life, to be sociable is the norm, as it is viewed as a catalyst to progress, but not in this.
Therefore when people get into knitting circles because they believe that sharing is the route, they damage themselves because they are at risk of misdirecting each other by doing the opposite of what it is they ought to be doing.They are certain to damage themselves and their peers irreparably by missing out on the benefits of realisations engendered by self imposed solitary reflection.
This is because inadvertently or otherwise the ideas shared emanate via the HP and not the TP, and in consequence are doomed to fail, only for the purposes of trading, effectively, repeatedly, on command, at will, nothing else.
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SOCRATES
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No Tomcat, it is not as simple as that, because the protection mechanism is booby trapped everywhere.
There is a correct route and the wrong route. I have acquired the ball of string that leads to safety. Anything that is stimulating is not good enough because it is not specific.
It has to be specific.
By this I mean that the faculty a trader uses to observe is visual. It is the visual faculty that has to be paid attention to. The HP contains three main faculties, they are the visual, the audial, and the kinesthetic.
For the purpose of trading we use the visual faculty, not the others.
For this reason what you have to put your attention on has to be close to what you do when you trade, but also far away., so as not to cripple the development of the desired state, which is the complete development in separation, of the trading persona.
This is a curious paradox. By this I mean you must not put your attention on anything to do with or connected with trading in any way, but something sufficiently similar in parallel for you to be able to complete the excercise.
The whole thing is very delicate, because it is abstract. If you do not do it correctly from the start you will mess it up and all your efffort will be wasted. For this reason the constraints are very tight, very specific.
As we progress you will begin to appreciate in greater depth why this is so.
There is a correct route and the wrong route. I have acquired the ball of string that leads to safety. Anything that is stimulating is not good enough because it is not specific.
It has to be specific.
By this I mean that the faculty a trader uses to observe is visual. It is the visual faculty that has to be paid attention to. The HP contains three main faculties, they are the visual, the audial, and the kinesthetic.
For the purpose of trading we use the visual faculty, not the others.
For this reason what you have to put your attention on has to be close to what you do when you trade, but also far away., so as not to cripple the development of the desired state, which is the complete development in separation, of the trading persona.
This is a curious paradox. By this I mean you must not put your attention on anything to do with or connected with trading in any way, but something sufficiently similar in parallel for you to be able to complete the excercise.
The whole thing is very delicate, because it is abstract. If you do not do it correctly from the start you will mess it up and all your efffort will be wasted. For this reason the constraints are very tight, very specific.
As we progress you will begin to appreciate in greater depth why this is so.
china white
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May I comment on developing trading psychology?
Why do u think Argentina lost Copa America to Brasil? Argentina had better players AND they DID play better than Brasileiros.
Why - when D'Alessando (the highest paid player in South America) came to the ball to fire the first penalty - I KNEW he was not going to put it away? (actually I bet 6:1 on that and got lousy 600 Mexican pesos)
That is PURE psychology. And that is EXACTLY how it goes in trading.
Why do u think Argentina lost Copa America to Brasil? Argentina had better players AND they DID play better than Brasileiros.
Why - when D'Alessando (the highest paid player in South America) came to the ball to fire the first penalty - I KNEW he was not going to put it away? (actually I bet 6:1 on that and got lousy 600 Mexican pesos)
That is PURE psychology. And that is EXACTLY how it goes in trading.
SOCRATES
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Yes China, now you are an experienced, battle hardened professional, and you and I understand this and are able to factor it in. Here we are dealing with people who aspire to become effiicent traders who do not have these advantages. That is why I am proceeding with this thread.
This question of the development of a trading persona for them to be able to deal with the market is the single most important aspect of trading. I am doing it in a structured manner, step by step. The first steps involve the audience recognising that what they are using for trading is the wrong persona, and why this is the case.
In the next steps we are going to find ways of by-passing the HP and its protective mechanisms to start to create the TP. I am doing this because a lot of rubbish is spoken and writtten about it elsewhere, and none of that works, in fact, it only serves to screw up and confuse everybody further. The trading persona, or TP has to be constructed correctly , in order to guarantee reliability and permanency.
It is not an easy process because all of it is abstract. Many people do not see any need to change, therefore they start to argue, but I am going to persist no matter what. In the next discourse I will explain in detail why it is that people do not see any reason for changing they way they are, they think and they act.
All of it is obvious. It is just that no one explains it in a way that is constructively practical for aspiring traders. This is what we are doing here. Of course, as usual you input is welcome.
This question of the development of a trading persona for them to be able to deal with the market is the single most important aspect of trading. I am doing it in a structured manner, step by step. The first steps involve the audience recognising that what they are using for trading is the wrong persona, and why this is the case.
In the next steps we are going to find ways of by-passing the HP and its protective mechanisms to start to create the TP. I am doing this because a lot of rubbish is spoken and writtten about it elsewhere, and none of that works, in fact, it only serves to screw up and confuse everybody further. The trading persona, or TP has to be constructed correctly , in order to guarantee reliability and permanency.
It is not an easy process because all of it is abstract. Many people do not see any need to change, therefore they start to argue, but I am going to persist no matter what. In the next discourse I will explain in detail why it is that people do not see any reason for changing they way they are, they think and they act.
All of it is obvious. It is just that no one explains it in a way that is constructively practical for aspiring traders. This is what we are doing here. Of course, as usual you input is welcome.
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