The Daily Trading Coach

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by Brett N Steenbarger


  But isn’t that what becoming your own coach is all about? It doesn’t matter if the focus is trading, sales, parenting, or athletics: the goal is to make a work of art of your life by becoming the best you can possibly be.

  The great disease that afflicts most people is their inability to think greatly of themselves. It’s not about narcissism (which reflects an absence of self, not authentic greatness), and it’s not about new-age self-esteem palliatives. Rather, thinking greatly of oneself is charting a path in life that makes a difference. It’s living a goal-oriented life, not a life of drifting from day to day. It’s remaining true to values and purposes, so that life has worth and meaning. It’s about making such a profound impact that someone, somewhere will want to conclude their book with a dedication to you.

  Your life is a partially finished work of art.

  There’s an old saw that we tend to marry people like our parents. In my younger days, I would have been horrified at the prospect. Looking back on my mother’s impact on her family and my wife Margie’s impact on hers, I know that the rule holds true for me. Margie’s greatest talent is that she is secure enough within herself to help others feel special about themselves. When one of our children went through a difficult marriage, I never once worried. I knew that she would eventually find happiness, because she had the experience of being special to her mother. When you have that deep feeling of not being ordinary, you ultimately gravitate toward the best within you, the best for you.

  If you are going to be successful as your own coach, you will need to be like Connie and Margie; you’ll need to sustain a relationship with yourself in which you are always special, no matter how daunting immediate obstacles may seem. You’ll need to focus on your successes every bit as much—if not more—than your failures. You’ll need to structure specific goals and concrete activities designed to achieve those, so that every day is an affirmation of drive and competence. Self-coaching is not about keeping journals or tracking your profits and losses. It’s about forging a relationship with yourself that is as empowering as a mother’s with a family.

  At the end of all of this, you may decide that trading is not your path in life. Have the courage to embrace that and find the work that truly captures who you are and what you do best. I love trading—the intellectual challenge, the endless opportunities for improvement, and the immediacy of the feedback. You know when you’ve done well; you know when you’ve let yourself down. While trading has made me money, it’s not truly what I do best. I once tried to be a full-time trader and quickly felt a large hole in my life where psychology—and working with people—had vanished. So now I trade markets on the side, work as a coach to professional traders, apply my greatest interests and talents in the most challenging settings, and write books that maybe, just maybe, will help others find what is special within them.

  Let your strengths define your path.

  Know what you do best. Build on strengths. Never stop working on yourself. Never stop improving. Every so often, upset the apple cart and pursue wholly new challenges. The enemy of greatness is not evil; it’s mediocrity. Don’t settle for the mediocre. You don’t have to be an artist and art teacher to make a work of art out of your life. And if trading is your path, learn from those who have blazed the trail ahead of you. Your final assignment is to absorb the resources from the various chapters of this book and select the few that will best support your self-coaching. They will provide the brushes and paint with which you’ll create your life’s artwork.

  FOR MORE ON SELF-COACHING

  The contributors to Chapter 9 have assembled their own mentoring resources, all linked on the Trading Coach site: http://becomeyourowntradingcoach.blogspot.com/2008/08/contributors-to-daily-trading-coach.html

  My latest project is a free electronic book on trading theory and technique entitled Introduction to Trading that I am writing one blog post at a time: http://becomeyourowntradingcoach.blogspot.com/2008/09/introduction-to-trading.html

  The TraderFeed blog covers a range of topics, from the psychology of traders to the psychology of markets: www.traderfeed.blogspot.com

  I’ll be adding coaching resources to the Trading Coach site over time; if you have questions or particular interests, by all means feel free to leave a question or comment on one of the blog posts: http://becomeyourowntradingcoach.blogspot.com. Also feel free to contact me at the e-mail address specific to this book: [email protected]

  For my books on trading psychology and trader performance, as well as related materials, check out the Amazon site: www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Brett+Steen barger&x=8&y=18

  About the Author

  Brett N. Steenbarger, PhD is clinical associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at State University of New York Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, NY. As a clinical psychologist, Dr. Steenbarger has co-authored a training text and written numerous book chapters and peer-reviewed journal articles on the topic of brief therapy. Dr. Steenbarger has traded equity markets since the late 1970s; he works as a trading coach for hedge funds, investment banks, and proprietary trading firms in the U.S., U.K., and Asia. He is also the author of two books on trading psychology (The Psychology of Trading, John Wiley, 2003; Enhancing Trader Performance, John Wiley, 2006), and writes a daily blog on trader and market psychology (www.traderfeed.blogspot.com).

  Index

  A Dash of Insight blog

  acceptance

  addiction

  Adler, David

  Afraid to Trade blog

  Alcoholics Anonymous

  Alpha Trends blog

  anxiety

  Aronson, David

  automatic thoughts

  Bandura, Albert

  Barchart.com

  Barros, Ray

  behavioral coaching

  conditioning and

  contingencies and. See also reinforcement

  exposure

  incompatible states and

  positive associations and

  shaping and

  social learning and

  worry and

  Become Your Own Trading Coach blog

  Bellafiore, Mike

  biofeedback

  boredom

  breathing

  brief therapy

  burnout

  business plans

  Carstens, Henry

  Carter, John

  catastrophizing

  change

  emotion in

  environment and

  focused

  readiness for

  routine and

  chart review

  cognitive coaching techniques . See also schemas.

  challenging thought patterns

  cognitive journal

  disrupting thought patterns

  emotion in

  experiments

  imagery and

  positive thought patterns and

  reframing

  collaboration

  communication

  concentration

  conditioning

  confidence

  contextualism

  contingencies

  Cooper, Jeff

  coping

  core competencies

  core needs

  corrective emotional experiences

  correlations of returns

  creativity

  Csikszentmihalyi, Mihalyi

  Czirnich, Chris

  Dalton, Jim

  defenses

  despair

  Decision Point

  Devon Principle

  discipline

  discrepancy

  diversification

  psychological

  Douglas, Mark

  Dow TICK (TICKI)

  drawdowns

  Duryea, Bill

  Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE)

  e-Signal

  Edenbridge

  ego alien

  elitetrader.com

  emotio
n . See also mood.

  changing

  behavioral coaching and

  cognitive coaching and

  fear

  imagery and

  journaling and

  niche and

  perception and

  positive

  psychodynamic coaching and ,

  repetitive patterns of

  states

  transforming

  energy

  Excel

  basics

  coding data in

  sorting data in

  visualizing data in

  execution

  expectations

  expertise development

  exposure

  external observer

  fatigue

  fear

  Fisher, Larry

  flow. See also zone

  forecasting P/L

  Forman, John

  Frankl, Viktor

  frustration

  generalization

  Globetrader blog

  goals

  emotion in

  process

  Goepfert, Jason

  Goldberg, Elkonon

  greatness

  Gurdjieff, G. I.

  habit

  Hanna, Rob

  happiness

  Harnett, Trevor

  hate

  honesty

  imagery . See also visualization

  Institute of Auction Market Theory

  integrity

  intentionality

  intuition

  Kirk, Charles

  lbrgroup.com

  Liberman, Terry

  Luborsky, Lester

  Mabe, Dave

  Market Delta

  Market Profile

  Market Tells

  Marketsinprofile.com

  Maslow, Abraham

  meditation

  Meichenbaum, Donald

  mental checklist

  Miller, Jeff

  mirroring

  mood. See also emotion

  motivation

  suppression of

  niche. See trading niche

  Niederhoffer, Victor

  novelty

  NYSE TICK

  O’Neil, William

  overconfidence

  patterns of behavior

  extinguishing

  problem

  repetitive

  solution

  thinking. See also schemas

  Pennebaker, James

  Pepper, Stephen

  perception

  emotion and

  fear and

  performance anxiety

  Perruna, Chris

  personality

  physical tension

  Piaget, Jean

  Pinnacle Data

  play

  position size

  positive psychology

  positive thinking

  pressing

  price targets

  procrastination

  proprietary trading

  psychodynamic coaching

  challenging defenses

  coaching relationship and

  discomfort and

  discrepancy and

  emotion and

  past relationships and

  positive relationships

  repetitive patterns

  transference and

  working through

  qualitative data

  Quantifiable Edges blog

  Rand, Ayn

  Raschke, Linda Bradford

  Real Tick

  reframing

  reinforcement

  relapse

  relationships

  with self

  repetition

  research

  resilience

  responsibility

  review

  risk

  adjusted returns

  allocation

  aversion

  excessive

  increasing

  management

  measuring

  reducing

  reward and

  rules and

  tolerance

  roles

  rules

  SMB Capital

  SMB Training blog

  schemas

  self awareness

  self confidence

  self efficacy

  self esteem

  self mastery

  self monitoring

  self talk

  self understanding

  Seneadza, Michael

  Senters, Hubert

  Sentimentrader.com

  serenity

  Shannon, Brian

  shaping

  shoulds

  Simonton, Dean Keith

  simulation trading

  slumps

  social learning

  Spencer, Steve

  startup capital

  state

  incompatible

  stimulus-response

  Stock Tickr

  stop loss . See also risk

  strengths

  stress . See also coping

  distress and

  inoculation

  perception and

  tenacity

  tension

  The Essentials of Trading blog

  The Kirk Report blog

  thought stopping

  Tick Data

  Trade Ideas

  trade2win.com

  trade management

  TradeStation

  tradethemarkets.com

  Trader DNA

  TraderFeed blog

  Trader Mike blog

  trading,

  affirmations

  automated

  business

  concepts

  edge

  environment

  historical patterns

  journal

  metrics

  niche

  partner

  plans

  records

  size, see position size

  statistics. See also trading metrics

  target

  themes

  volume

  Trading RM

  Trading Success blog

  transference

  trauma

  triggers

  trust

  Twitter

  Valfer, Reid

  variables, independent and dependent

  variability of returns

  video recording

  virtual trading groups

  visualization

  of data

  VIX

  volatility

  well being. See also happiness

  working through

  worry

  Yang, Rennie

  Zone

 

 

 


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