Discovering the Historical Narrative that Sabotages Your Trading Mind

Everybody has seen it in their trading. You go through these cycles where everything seems to come together and then it falls apart. And you go, how did that happen? What could have possibly caused it? And you look at it and you go, from a rational mind, you can't figure it out and yet it keeps reoccurring, reoccurring. And you realize, I need to solve this problem. What is defies logic, but what is this it that keeps happening to you? Okay, what we want to do is start looking at self limiting patterns. Self limiting patterns as they manifest in your trading. Ultimately, you know, ultimately what happens is you end up starting with formation. A pattern starts as a way the brain operates with its environment. It first starts by saying, okay, I've got a solution, it works. I get a little dopamine squirt that habituates the pattern. And then it starts becoming automatic. It starts becoming so familiar it drops out of sight. And suddenly what you have is a repeating pattern that simply seems to have a life of its own. How does it happen? You know, basically what I want to talk about is adaptation, Brain, emotion and mind and the brain's need to create a story, something called personal narrative. Remember, when that brain is going, you know something, I'm engaging uncertainty, I feel uncertainty. That leads to vulnerability. Vulnerability leads to, if you don't watch out, to a fight flight response, okay. And that's when you start going, you know something, I'm doing really well, I'm hitting this stuff and I'm feeling good. And you go, wow, I should feel good, I'm doing really well. The truth is, no, you shouldn't in trading that feeling good, feeling good, look at me, I've got it together. That's euphoria, that's dopamine. And what it's doing is, it's creating a mind that says, oh, the good times are going to roll on together, it's just going to roll on forever. And you start not following your rules, you start letting down your guard and suddenly that great run you had falls apart. And then it becomes pattern. Then it becomes pattern. Particularly if you, if you've come to a moment where in your heart of hearts, in your brain of brain and your belief of beliefs, you really don't believe that you deserve to be earning that kind of money or what am I going to do with that kind of money? And you just go, wow, you know, I'm not prepared for that. This is when you begin to see that you know something. Beliefs are powerful. Beliefs are so powerful. Is that ultimately beliefs is the Glue that holds pattern, emotion, and narrative together. Because what I want you to understand is that narrative really is the way the story, the mind makes up about the pattern recognition, about the pattern duplication, and you falling into that pattern over and over again without even recognizing it. What you need, friends, in order to be able to see this is a new set of eyes. The eyes that you brought to trading are probably not going to be the eyes that you need. You need to be able to learn to spot the pattern and to begin to ask, where did this pattern come from? How does it work? And when you get there, you start looking at it and go, there's the narrative. And that narrative, basically it becomes a predictor of what you're going to do. Okay, I'll give you an example. A guy does very well. He earns a funded account, and he does well the first part of it, okay? And he goes in and he makes money. He's making more money. He starts feeling really good, and then it falls apart. Okay? Suddenly that pattern, oh, my God, I'm making money, I'm going to fall apart, happens. It's wired in. And now he's done it four or five times. Do you see the problem with narrative, with pattern, with emotion, and this whole notion of how in the world belief gets involved?

What we want to learn to do is to be able to step back, learn to observe that. And what we really need to do is at the moment of emotion, like in the case I was just talking about, the guy started getting euphoric, he started feeling good, he started getting overconfident. Those are the things he needs to be able to observe that and say, you know something? I need to reorganize the mind that trades into that moment. I need to make sure that the mind stays in one particular zone, this intentional mind, rather than allowing it to wander, okay, wherever it wants to go, that is danger in trading. So ultimately, what we want to look at is these beliefs. What beliefs are you actually bringing to your trading that you're projecting on it onto the markets? Because ultimately you have never seen the markets. Okay, what really happens is your brain takes sensorial information from your senses, organizes it based on your beliefs, based on the emotions you're in, and based on your ability to observe into a virtual representation that you then project onto the phenomenon of the markets. That's what's happening, friends. Unfortunately, it's happening with you being unconscious of it. What I'm saying is to move to that next level of where you see the pattern, you can diagnose it and you can begin to understand, oh, this is the pattern formation. Ah, this is the beliefs behind that. These are the emotions that appear, that drive me. Remember that euphoria with the guy that I was talking about? And all of a sudden you see, wow, this is what my brain does. Yes, this is the brain on trading. This is the brain that's already created patterns that keeps it safe, keeps everything copacetic. And suddenly things change. New emotions appear and they get wired in. And before you know it, that euphoria is kicked in. Or you can take it the reverse way where you come to a moment of where all of a sudden you go, you know something, you know, what if I lose? And you get this sense of, like this sense of inadequacy that says, you know something, you know something, I don't know if I'm good enough to win. Suddenly you start seeing a pattern of perception, that narrative being created out of that. And understand this, you don't have the narrative. You don't have that personal historical narrative. It has you. And until you can observe it and begin to say, oh, this is the narrative I need to start being able to tweak it. You learn how to regulate it. You learn how to deconstruct it and to reconstruct it into higher functioning. And you start going, I need to deal with. With the fear are the euphoria behind the problem so that I have the stable mind I need for trading. When you do that, you discover that we can easily go in and reorganize the very mind that trades. That's the power, friends. That's what's possible for everyone. And what I want you to do is I invite you to our website to be able to check out a lot more information there. It gets much deeper into this. And the other thing is what I really invite you to do when you get to the website, get the free ebook. Start really learning about emotional intelligence. Start learning about the personal narrative that grabs you and turns you out into your trading. And start seeing how that pattern can be changed as you become a better observer, as you learn how to regulate the emotions. Let's start there. Start really developing the mind that trades. Come to the website, take a look and have a really great day.