Mastering the Biggest Problem in Trading Is Hidden in Plain Sight

Recently I was being interviewed for a podcast. And during the podcast, the podcaster asked this question, Randy, what do you think is the biggest problems that traders really have to overcome? And he gave the litany of all the different problems that everybody knows about. That fear of losing, the fear of missing out, just, you know, taking skinny profits, all that stuff all the way down the litany. And then, you know, what happened though is he says, what do you think, Randy? And I said, well, to be honest with you, I believe that what you're talking about is secondary. I know traders have lots of problems, particularly with that fear of losing. And at the same time, what happens, they also fall into euphoria and get overconfident and blow up stuff. I know that happens, but that's the result of another problem. Okay. In order to get to those fears or those aggressions that show up in our trading performance, we have to get at something even deeper, much deeper. The problem is, as I explained, is the brain that we brought to trading is not going to produce victory, success in trading. It's built for very different purposes, very different purposes. It was built at a time somewhere between 6 and 8 million years ago as a primitive brain, a mammalian brain that hominoids.

Early ancestors of us carried about. And it allowed them to work in groups, it allowed them to nurture each other, it allowed them to scourge, it allowed them to go and produce a life. It also had razor sharp survival instincts. These instincts would trigger ahead of the brain. Of course, at this particular time, these hominoids that we used to be that look more like chimpanzees really didn't have a thinking brain. That thinking brain grew over millions of years out of the emotional brain and then was set up. The problem is, is that there was lots of intricate communication going into that new brain, the thinking brain, but very little communication coming back from the new brain into the old brain. That ancient brain does not think. And when a traitor is sitting there and he thinks he's control, he's got everything together, everything's going just fine. Thank you. I'm thinking through this. I'm following my plan. I'm looking for, I'm looking for all these criterion what he doesn't realize that the thinking brain has no idea that the ancestral brain, that ancient brain, that caveman brain is there and it's looking for trouble.

And it just so happens that it looking for trouble. There is lots of trouble with uncertainty. You're actually risking capital to an uncertain future. Which by the way just triggers that emotional brain like crazy. So now we've got this brain that wasn't built to do what you're asking it to do. And what you're doing is you're exposing it to uncertainty. And understand.

That primitive caveman brain cannot discern the difference between risking money and risking your life. So when you sit there and you take a loss, that thing goes against you and then it really hits that hits that stop. And you, you move it. What you're doing is an ancient survival strategy from long ago.

It wants to say it thinks it's being attacked by a saber toothed tiger and it's fighting for its life. And it's going to fight till its last breath. Friends, that's the brain we brought to trading. We didn't bring the brain that calmly, coolly looked things and decided, okay, I can take this small loss and it's nothing. Actually, it's a victory because I followed my rules. You know, that has nothing to do with that caveman brain. That caveman brain is going, oh, my God. You know, he's risking. He's risking capital. No, he's not. He's risking our lives. You see the difference? If you put a whole bunch of money in front of a caveman, he wouldn't know what to do with it. Maybe use it for tender for fire. But he doesn't get capital. He gets life, though. And all of a sudden you see, okay, I see where the fear of losing comes from. Because that primitive brain cannot discern capital from life. And from its standpoint, it's under threat, it's under siege. It's danger. It has to alert up, has to focus. And suddenly all thinking is shut off.

All the energy goes to the amygdala and is turned into tension, ready to run, fight, okay? And also into breathing, holding breath. You don't need to think. You can cut off oxygen supply to the brain. All you need is big muscles for fighting or fleeing, and boom, before you know it. And even if it's aggression, you know, like at one time, kind of crazy, crazy infantile behavior is okay, you saw a woolly mammoth, he was 30 times your size, you in a band of eight, your buddies were, were going to get all pumped up and go attack that. Because if they brought it down and killed it, it fed a clan for a month.

Okay? However, what the brain didn't do is get you to size up and say, this is a really dangerous task. The likelihood of you going through that several times and living is pretty great. It's kind of like in World War II when the Allies were sending all the B17s over Germany and bombing them.

There's a 25% kill rate.

Okay? Each time you went up, there's a 25% chance you were not coming back. So the time you get up there and have done four, five, six missions, man, you know it's coming. What you do I got to do, get pumped up. Got pumped up. And that's exactly what happened to the caveman. Here in the trading though, what you're doing is you're seeing an opportunity. And it may not be an opportunity in your rules, but what happened, your brain is looking to seize an opportunity and making a whole bunch of money for the vill.

Because if you make a lot of money for the village, actually get that woolly mammoth and have it butchered and stuff like that, man, you've got prestige, you're in leadership. And you also get first picks to the babes to be able to generate your genes into the future. Big deal worth risking life for. To the caveman now in trading though, it's a completely different thing. There are no woolly mammoths.

And what you're doing is you're saying, you know something, I see the pot of gold, I'm going to go for that. And at the same time, though.

You have a one in four cents, one, whatever, that it's not going to work out. And suddenly when you do that, you go into revenge trading because you don't want to lose the sabers with tigers on you and stuff like that. So, friends, what I'm asking you to recognize is all these different fears, all these different things that you see as limiting you comes from an ancient brain.

That was built to deal with short term survival. And then you stick that brain into trading without any training to be able to do otherwise, and you expect it to be able to do well. Golly, excuse me, that is crazy. It's like Albert Einstein saying, you know, the definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different. I want you to look at your trading and look at the places you're doing over and over and over the same thing. It doesn't get results and yet you keep doing it. You're traumatizing yourself. You're trying to make a brain built for one thing do something else without the idea that you know something. I can train this brain to produce a mind that can actually engage probability rather than the certainty of death, or avoiding the certainty of death are assuming that you can go in and make all that money, kill that, kill that Willy mammoth, okay, with training. And that training starts with something so simple as to understand that emotions, you don't have emotions, they have you. They're automatic, okay? They are biological action potentials that organize the relationship between you, the trader, the markets, the environment, the organism. And ultimately anytime there's a change in status out there in the markets, there is automatically an emotion that fires. And most likely if it's under stress, that emotion that fires short circuits the thinking brain. The brain, it doesn't even know it happened. And it's already in the amygdala, already producing chemistry and you're already gaga. That's how fast it happens. It happens in 0.003 seconds. To get communication to the thinking brain takes 0.25 seconds. Now who do you think is going to win that battle? What I'm asking of you is wake up. There is a blind spot. You're looking right at the problem, you don't see it. I'm asking you to open your eyes and recognize the problems here. You have a mammalian brain, you have a caveman brain, you have an ancient survival brain that is going to lead unstressed unless you train it to act differently. I'm asking you to start looking at that, Realize you're not going to gut it out, you're just going to push through it by will. And I wouldn't quit because I'm not a quitter, that kind of stuff. And recognize what you need to do is you need to change the way the brain triggers to uncertainty. What emotional programs are there, what that uncertainty really means.

Okay? If it has the meaning, if you're risking capital. And it has the meaning. Oh my God, the Sabbath with tigers jumping on me. Friends, you're going to have a hard time in trading. But if you can sit there and see, okay, the trade's going against me. This is in my plan. I have, I have this place where I have, I have stops. I also know that, that I can maintain calmness, I can breathe, I can calm myself down, I can pull forward a brain that is based in discipline, based in courage, self calming, so that I can think clearly. Friends, that can be taught. All that has to happen is for you to wake up and to see the blind spot that's been sitting right in front of you. And this time do something about it. Train it so you have more options. Come and learn, friends, come and learn. Watch the webinar that comes along with this. Go to YouTube, watch more, go to my website, start exploring. And if you don't know about me, get my free ebook first. It's easy. You kind of start getting an idea of what I'm really talking about, and then you might start exploring. Well, how does Randy actually teach the brain to evolve differently than the way it originally was put together?

Yeah, that's the ticket. Come and learn, friends. Come to the webinar.