El ascenso de los tecnócratas

One of our chief needs as trade/vestors is support. Unfortunately this sup-port can be hard to find. One of our students was a full time trader with more than 20 years of full time trading in the markets. He came to us for advice about no support. His wife was a high-income professional who worked from 8 A.M. to 4 P.M. five days a week. He traded from home and al-most never went out during market hours. When we asked him to explain his situation more fully, he told us,

“I trade all day long and my wife comes home around 4:30 P.M. She opens the door and this is how she starts the conversation every day. She always begins by asking ‘How much of our money did you lose today?’ ”

He awaited our advice. We honestly told him that, assuming he wanted to continue trading profitably, there are only three alternatives: either (1) shoot her, (2) divorce her, probably a more reasonable alternative, or (3) send her to study with us. He was trying to trade profitably in a com-pletely untenable situation.

Having support from your significant others is very important. But even more important is having support—from inside you.

Protecting the Trader Within

Remember your trader within is a child. Learning to let yourself trade prof-itably is like learning how to walk. You begin by crawling. Baby steps follow and then there will be falls.

Judging yourself by your early trade is abuse. Judging yourself by more successful experienced traders is also a big mistake. The fledgling trader behaves with well-practiced masochism. Masochism is an art form long ago mastered, perfected during the years of reproach. This habit is the self-hating bludgeon with which a shadow trader can beat himself right back into the shadows. What we are looking for in the beginning is progress, not perfection.

Trading is like marathon training. We want to log 10 slow miles for every 1 fast mile. This slow progress can go against the ego’s grain. We want to be great—immediately great—but it does not work that way. There will be many times when we will not look good—to ourselves or anyone else We need to stop demanding that we do. It is impossible to get better and look good at the same time.

Remember to be a good trader, you must be willing to be a bad trader.

Give yourself permission to make some mistakes and be willing to be a bad trader every now and then. You have a chance to be a good trader and over time maybe even a great trader.

Your Enemy Within—Core Negative Beliefs

Most of the time when we are blocked in any area of our life, it is because we feel safer that way. We may not be happy but at least we know what we are—unhappy. Much fear of our own success is fear of the unknown.

Here is a list of deeply held but rarely spoken, and sometimes uncon-scious negative beliefs that we have found with most traders.

I cannot be successful because

• Everyone will hate me.

• I will hurt my family and friends.

• I will go crazy.

• I will abandon my family and friends.

• I do not have good enough ideas.

• I do not understand this economy.

• My ideas do not coincide with what I see on TV about the markets.

• I will embarrass myself in front of my family and friends.

• I will never have a steady livable income.

• I will never have any “real” money.

• I will feel bad because I do not deserve to be successful.

• It is too late (I should have studied the markets much earlier).

None of the negative core beliefs are true. They come to us from our parents, our religion, our culture, and our fearful friends. Negative beliefs are exactly that: beliefs, not facts. The world was never flat, although every-one believed that it was. You are not dumb, crazy, egomaniacal, grandiose, or silly just because you falsely believe yourself to be.

What You Are Is Scared

Core negative beliefs keep you scared. Let’s explore some logic-brain/

trader learning tricks. These may strike you as hokey and unproductive.

Again, that is resistance. If internalized negativity is the enemy within, what follows is very effective weaponry. Try it before discarding it out of hand.

Your Ally Within: Affirmative Weapons

Just pick an affirmation. For example “I (your name) am a brilliant and profitable trade/vestor.” Write that out 10 times in a row. While you are busy doing that, something very interesting will happen. your censor will start to object. “Hey, wait a minute. You can’t say all that positive stuff around me, it’s just not really true.” Objections will start to pop up like burnt toast. We call these blurts.

Listen to the objections. Look at those ugly, stumpy little blurts. “Bril-liant and profitable . . . sure you are . . . since when? You’re just kidding yourself . . . an idiot . . . grandiose . . . who are you kidding? Who do you think you are?” All these are blurts.

Where do your blurts come from? Mom? Dad? Teachers? Church? At least some of these will spring violently to mind. Instead substitute some positive affirmations, as exemplified in the following list, to replace those negative blurts.

Creative Affirmations

• I am a channel and my works come to good.

• My dreams come from the Tao and I have the power to accomplish them.

• As I create and listen, I will be guided in my trading.

• My creativity heals my losses and myself.

• I am allowed to nurture the trader within.

• My paraconscious always leads me to truth and love.

• My paraconscious leads me to forgiveness and self-forgiveness.

• As I listen, I am led.

• I am willing to win in the markets.

• I am willing to learn and let myself trade profitably.

• I am willing to be of service through my trading.

• I am willing to experience my creative energy.

• I am willing to use my creative talents.

Now look at your own list of blurts. They are very important to your profit sheet. Each of them has held you in bondage. Each of them must be dissolved. Use your affirmations and then go on to what we call “the morn-ing pages.” This idea and procedure comes directly from Julia Cameron and her book The Artist’s Way (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1992). It is without doubt the very best approach we have found for getting our mind into a winning paradigm. It is a procedure that allows you to get into the flow of the market.

This procedure is not a problem-solving technique but rather a method of blending, melding, and attaining oneness with the market and the world.

It is the Aikido way of trading the market and influencing everything that we do. You do not trade the markets in a vacuum. You are in the market and a fellow creator of that same market.

HOW TO USE THE MORNING PAGES