Breaking the Cycle: How to Avoid Trading’s Kiss of Death

Hi there. Brian McAvoy with Inside Out Trading. Today we're going to talk about one of my favorite things to talk about because this is such a big deal. So many traders, me included, years ago, you know, when you're struggling and you're just really, you know, it's like, I really want to turn this around. I'm tired of being frustrated with it. The question usually comes up, it's like, why is this so stinking hard? I'm not stupid. And this doesn't look that tough. It looks pretty straightforward. Why am I having such a hard time with it? What the heck is going on? Because the, the answer is generally they're, they're not so easily seen with trading. They're not. Of course, some people, they love to oversimplify because they're selling you their strategy or their signal services or maybe they got some woo, woo, you know, psychological thing. But really the answer to why this is so difficult when it really shouldn't be, comes down to one simple thing. It comes down to an event that happened early in your trading career. And I've come to term this event, I call it the kiss of death for traders. Because this is the one thing, the common event that happens for almost everybody that's struggling and struggling for a long time with trading. And this is what caused it all. It's not because you have some deep subconscious issue. I mean, if you, maybe you do, but the majority of traders, you don't have some deep subconscious issue. Of course our childhoods were traumatic. We were children. But we work through it and that's why we're able to be fully functional, reasonably successful, above average individuals as adults. I mean, most traders are above average. And intelligence, success, discipline, being able to amass money, all that kind of stuff. We've already demonstrated that, yeah, we work through all those issues, otherwise you wouldn't be in a position to trade. Trading is not where the average Joe shows up. It's not. You pretty much have to be above average to be in the trading game. And so you've already demonstrated that you have what it takes as a person. So, you know, you're sitting there thinking, and, and this, this comes up and it's a big deal because I've had a lot of people come to me over the years and again, very frustrated, like Brian, what the heck's going on? Because I've got like my strategy, I believe in it, I think it's a good strategy, but I just, man, I just can't seem to stick to it. I'm always shooting myself in the foot. What I need to fix is me. And so they're sitting, you know, they're thinking. And again, logically, so based on appearances, they're sitting there thinking. I must have some subconscious issue, some limiting belief, something I picked up along the way somewhere. But I need to fix me. And the thing is, they're right in a certain regard. There is something that needs to be fixed, but it's not them as a person. What's wrong is this kiss of death happened. This is what causes the. The struggle for nearly every single trader. And again, I fell prey to it too. I got. I was fortunate that I was able to become aware of it and turn things around. It wasn't easy and it took a while to work through, but I was able to. Now, here's what I'm talking about. Okay, so what's this big kiss of death? Well, okay, let me give you a little context and why this is such a common problem. And it does happen to pretty much everybody that gets into trading. Almost everybody. Very few exceptions. Almost everybody. Because the nature of the trading space, I mean, you got basically a bunch of brokers out there, they're recruiting people.