Rande Howell discusses core psychological barriers that prevent traders from performing at empowered levels: (1) a 'rocky effect' or belief one is somehow exempt from rules/odds; (2) an attachment to being right and controlling outcomes; (3) the urge to predict outcomes despite market randomness; and (4) self-preservation—resistance to change. Howell argues these stem from evolutionary, certainty-seeking wiring and recommends shifting to a probability-based mindset: accept uncertainty, train the mind to respond with discipline and patience, and redesign moment-to-moment mental responses. He directs viewers to additional articles and resources on the website for practical training.
Chapters
What are the biggest problems in developing trader psychology to be able to perform at empowered levels? What is it? You know, a lot of people work, they put a lot of effort into this, they know trading. But when they get into trading and the act of trading, everything falls apart. What are the big problems? Let's start with the first one. The first one is really more evolutionary than psychological, but we confuse it with psychology. The first one is this hardwired trait. We have what I might call the rocky effect, where rules don't apply to you. Against all odds. You know, a trader will look at this thing, they will look at trading, they will recognize that, you know, the odds are really against me. But, you know, somehow I'm special, I think I can do it, even though every shred of evidence shows me it won't. And then they have this idea of victory. That's what they go in and they just keep, keep focusing on that. They can't lose, they can't lose. They're going to win. They're going to find that against all odds attitude and it kills a lot of traders because what happens is they're going to have to substantially change, yet they're stuck right there in that. You know, it doesn't apply to me. Yes, it does. So that's the first thing. The second thing is actually more common is wanting to be right. There's just amazing is you want to be right, you want to control outcome. And yet when you get into trading, you find out very clearly that you can't control outcome no matter how much you want. Control of outcome is an illusion, yet we hold onto it because we want to be right. Because our ego feels better when we're right.
Has nothing to do with success in trading though. That has to be given up.
The third thing is a corollary of that one, but it's this is you want to predict outcome. If you can't control outcome, you want to predict outcome. And so you get all these tools, all this stuff and all these analysis, and what you do is, you say, okay, now I've got it. I can predict outcome with real accuracy. And what happens is you get into the randomness, you get into the uncertainty of trading, and it all falls apart. Then the mind falls apart. That's the third one. The fourth one may be the toughest though. It's called self preservation. Where once the brain has organized you into a self, it doesn't want to let go of that construction of the self, it wants to preserve it no matter what. I'm not going to Change. I'm going to do it this way, okay? I'm not going to change, I'm going to stay. Even though it's not working, all the evidence is there, it's not working. But I insist on doing it this way. That's all evolutionary trait wired into you and that you're going to have to overcome if you're going to become a successful trader. Because here's the deal. You have a certainty based mind that is attempting to control outcome, control environment, and you have trading that works on probability. Ultimately the big huge shift that has to occur in trading as a trading mind goes, is to move from that sense of certainty, that sense of control to letting go of control. Hard thing for your evolutionary fresh flesh to do and to buy into probability. It's a big deal.
So that's where you start with a certainty mind, certainty based mind. But where you have to go is to a probability based mind where you're no longer in control.
It's an amazing thing when you let go of that biologically wired need to control and suddenly what happens? You start looking and saying, well, what can I do? That's the power right there, friends. Because when you start looking, you start recognizing that the old way you were organized by your brain before you knew what was going on isn't going to work. But what can work is to redesign the way the mind works from the brain. And you realize what you can control is the mind that you bring in to trading. The mind that you bring into the moment of action, the mind that you bring into the moment performance. Instead of moving from uncertainty, firing into, into a sense of like vulnerability and triggering fight flight. What you do is you train the mind. When it experiences uncertainty, it does move to that sense of vulnerability. But at vulnerability, that's where you change things, friends. Instead of fight flight, you bring in the emotions of discipline and patience and you learn how to provoke them into being. The mind creating the mind that manages the uncertainty and that can be taught. You want to know more. If you truly want to learn how to trade, it's going to be necessary for you to change the mindset you bring to trading. Come to our website, read the article that goes along with this video. Read more articles, more videos, there's tons there. Learn friends about how you change the mindset you bring to trading from certainty based to probability base and discover that that's the edge that you've been looking for. Thanks a.
