Mastering Your Uncertainty Monster

So. Where have you met your uncertainty monster? Almost all of us have it because ultimately at the very depth of human experience is we are built to fear uncertainty. We had to control outcome. We had to control. And it was when, when we were threatened. I mean, understand it was extinction. We had to, we had to either fear it enough to run from it or be aggressive enough to attack it. But the thing is, there was a monster out there. What's out there? What's out there? You know, something I can even now— I live in a rural subdivision and I can walk at night and I can be walking my dog and I can hear a noise and I'm back there with the uncertainty monster. What is that? I darn well know that it's a deer, yet I conjure up a saber-toothed tiger. That, my friends, is the uncertainty monster. And what we want to do is first acknowledge it and say, what does it kind of feel like for you? At least now you have a name that you can start saying, you know something, when I do really stuff that I know is not within my plan, I know that if I follow my plan, I have an edge. And if I keep at that edge, I'm going to extract more capital out of the markets than I put back in. But that's not what we do. What we do is we do the exact opposite. We get in there and we're— everything's good. We have the emotional discipline, you know, that uncertainty monster hasn't shown up apparently. And all of a sudden, what happens if we know what to do and suddenly we do the exact opposite of what we're supposed to do? Yeah, that. And all that is, is a triggering of your deep emotional brain to the experience of uncertainty. It doesn't know what's going to happen. And usually, particularly in trading, it happens in revenge trading. You know, you, you take that first loss, you can get over that, okay, maybe. You take that second loss, things get a little more, and then that third loss starts really looking at you. And all of a sudden, the uncertainty of the saber-toothed tiger bearing down on you and consuming you really takes over. It's now the fear of death. That's the way— that's why the uncertainty monster shows up. Oh my God, what if I die? And then think about this as a trader, what you're doing. You are actually placing bets, placing wagers, placing risk capital into the uncertainty of the markets. Did I say uncertainty of the market? Yeah, it is by nature uncertain. And so we're sitting there and we are constantly inviting that uncertainty monster to come visit us. And what I'm asking of you is, what are you doing about it? Generally, what happens is when I ask people and we start really detailing what happens in revenge trading, where, you know, suddenly they know what to do and suddenly they're not doing that, they're doubling down, they're doing everything they can, they're fighting for their life. On a fundamental level, that's exactly what they're doing. They're no longer saying, oh well, this is a trade going against me and it's in my plan, but it's not working out, so I'm just going to take a small loss. No, that's the thinking brain. We're talking about that caveman brain of yours. We're talking about that, oh my God, I have to control outcome or I die. Yeah, and understand Back then, 30, 40, 50, 100,000, 150,000 years ago, nature was very different. We just didn't have the deer and the bobcats in my area. We had large cats. We had 1,300-pound tigers. We had bears that were 900 pounds. We had big animals and they hunted us. So you can begin to see where, yeah, it's pretty uncertain. And you develop a feel for it. And just like in that image I showed you in the beginning, is that, you know, you're sitting there and you're looking out into the future and that, that uncertainty monster starts showing up and all of a sudden you start having doubt. OK, not just having to double down on, on a revenge trade, but now you're having a doubt about what you should do, whether or not I should even get into this thing. Maybe I should get more. Maybe I need to get more. I need to get more proof. I need to get more evidence. I need to do that, and the trade passes you by. All that confirmation went out the door because you wanted certainty. And in trading, the illusion of certainty is blown apart. We can lie to ourselves, which is really what it is. We make up stories that support a narrative about us being able to master things. We're big and we're tough, we're strong, we can, we can, you know I actually remember one time many years ago, I was in the Kiwanis Club and I was, I was part of a Halloween exhibit and we were scaring people. Okay. And I was Frankenstein. I had these big huge stilt things and stuff like that. And people would come in, it was all dark and all that stuff. And suddenly I would go, "Rawr!" And it would scare people to the bejeebers, except for a bunch of young guys who would puff up and go, "Rawr! Look at me, I'm tough." Those are the same guys that fall for the real uncertainty monster. Okay? And what I'm asking you to do is to recognize you don't— it's not like you're going to get past the uncertainty monster. You're going to have to learn to master it. You're going to have to learn to take a mind that was built for something very, very different in a time far, far away for completely different purposes And you're going to say, OK, I'm going to take that. And it really, truly helped me that that need to control outcome truly allowed me as a species to be here today. Then I take that very, very success formula that I found—hard work, never giving up, persistence. OK, and all of a sudden, positive thinking, all that affirmations, all that stuff that you use to keep this positive mind. And then you find out the trading gods don't care. All of a sudden, in that little moment, there's a history. Uncertainty has cost you. And now you're looking at it again, and that uncertainty monster grabs you. And to be honest with you, most people, when they finally describe it, they don't know when it happened. They just simply know that they got jerked around. They went tilt. And just became discombobulated. What we're saying is, no, there is a method, and you can learn to work with that method. It starts with emotion. If you begin to grasp that emotion is not about feeling, it's not about, you know, oh my God, I feel, I feel scared. No, emotion is really about action potentials. When there is a change in status in the financial markets, with all that uncertainty, by definition, you experience an emotion coming up. The deal is, can you manage those emotions? Because ultimately, the ones that got programmed by our caveman ancestors to be able to survive this uncertainty monster are not the ones that you're going to be able to use in trading. In trading, what you're going to have to use instead of fear and aggression to deal with uncertainty and overpowering stuff, what you're going to have to do is you're going to have to say, you know something, the very first thing I need to do, I need to see the pattern here. I can see that I'm revenge trading, and I start mapping it out, and I start seeing there is this area. And a lot of guys can take one, maybe two hits, take losses before they just succumb to that, that, that monster. But then what I'm asking you to do is when you start actually seeing that What you begin to do is you start learning diaphragmatic breathing that interrupts the process, the emotion getting up power, getting upstream, getting into your bloodstream, taking out the thinking brain. And at that point, you're able to stay in a probability-based mind because that's what you have to develop in trading. Certainty just isn't there, no matter how much you lie to yourself. The trading account is going to tell you the truth. Whether or not you like it or not. But you're sitting there and you're going, okay, I now know that I need to be prepared. I need to have my breathing set so that I cannot get overwhelmed by the emotion because it will, unless you know how to do it. You interrupt it. Okay? And you interrupt the tension that is also part of the emotional arousal response. Then you start developing the ability to be mindful. And recognize the first huge point that separates everything is that you and your thoughts, you and your beliefs are not the same. You are not having thoughts and beliefs. They're having you. You're born into a history. You adapt to that history, and that history is what walks and talks for you. What you're going to have to do is, in stepping back, realize that there is no permanent self. I know that sounds weird, but you can develop a new self that is much more aligned to probability thinking. You can stay with uncertainty and recognize that losing is just landing on the wrong side of probability. Winning is just landing on the right side of probability. And you're looking at it and going, I don't have any reason to get excited about a win. I don't have any reason to get excited on a loss. The real question is, I know that I manage probability by being able to have— I have a method that if I follow that method, I have an edge, and it allows me to extract more capital out of the markets than I give back. That's the ticket, friends. Okay, understand, it's process. You're no longer looking at winning and losing. You're not talking about, I'm going to make some money today. No, you're going to perform today. And if there's a failure of performance, you go, what happened here? And you find out, oh, is this a psychological problem that is being exposed? Is this a method problem? Or is this just probability? And often what you discover is probability. You let that go, you develop a new mind, and then you calm down that fear. You calm down that fear. The truth is, is you can re-mentor that scared part of the self, that aggression, aggressive part of the self, so that it's calm and doesn't react. That's when you start becoming a profitable trader. And then you start saying, I also know that these emotional programs of discipline of courage, of self-soothing, and of clarity of thought are present as part of my heritage as a human being. And what you learn to do and what we teach is we teach you how to pull up those emotional programs, okay, so that they become the operational ones when there is the stress of uncertainty that you're dealing with. That, friends, is how you go and start working with the uncertainty monster. Okay, life is gonna always be uncertain, but what happened is you can bring an empowered mind into that game. That is what you can control. All the other stuff, that's just fiction, but you can control the mind you bring to performance. Friend, come learn how. Take a look at more videos, take a look at The offerings we have, the courses we have, the book, the free book, all that. Take a look and start saying, I need you to educate myself on emotional intelligence so that I can build that intelligence to go along with the knowledge I have of trading. That's when the emotional brain and the thinking brain build a new partnership. That's when you become more than a glorified ape. You actually open up the door of human potential. Come join us, friends. Come join us.