A Strong Trading Mind

What do you want in this thread ?

  • Trading Articles

    Votes: 81 45.8%
  • Trading Quotes

    Votes: 53 29.9%
  • Trading Psychology Articles

    Votes: 123 69.5%
  • Insipirational Short Stories

    Votes: 55 31.1%
  • Inspirational Quotes

    Votes: 33 18.6%
  • Affirmations

    Votes: 18 10.2%
  • Stress Buster Exercises

    Votes: 38 21.5%
  • Family Articles

    Votes: 15 8.5%
  • Relationship Articles

    Votes: 20 11.3%
  • Behavoiral articles

    Votes: 46 26.0%

  • Total voters
    177

Catch22

Well-Known Member
Assessing Your Positives: Are You Flourishing? Brett Steenbarger ,

Recent research in psychology, much of which has been conducted under the umbrella of “positive psychology”, suggests that optimal functioning is achieved not just by minimizing negatives, but through the achievement of distinct positives. In the Trading Psychology 2.0 text, I focus on four domains of positivity: happiness and positive emotional experience; life satisfaction and fulfillment; physical well-being and energy; and relationship quality and affection. We function at our best when we are exercising strengths in each of these domains.

To appreciate the difference between the traditional psychological perspective and the newer one, consider two traders keeping performance journals. The first trader keeps tabs on various problems that creep into his or her trading, including the usual suspects of fear and greed. The journal entries note how these have occurred and what the trader will try to do subsequently to avoid the pitfalls.

The second trader keeps a journal that is broken down into five areas of performance: research and information collection; creativity and the generation of trading ideas; entry execution and position management; risk management and exit execution; and self-management along the four domains listed above. Each of those areas of performance is anchored by best practices and the reverse-engineering of successes, so that there is a continual refinement of strengths.

One journal consists of finger-wagging: don’t do the wrong things. The other journal consists of an exercise of strengths: do what you do best.

Which journal is most likely to be empowering? Which is a trader most likely to stick with? Which is most likely to lead to exemplary performance?

Minimizing our problems can help us cope. Maximizing our strengths can help us flourish.

My experience is that the flourishing focus is a true paradigm shift for most people. Most of us view our typical day as an opportunity to get tasks done, manage challenges that arise, and hopefully accomplish some things. Once we view life through the lens of flourishing, however, each day becomes an opportunity to enhance happiness, personal satisfaction, energy, and relationships. This is the idea of life as a gymnasium: each day presents challenges that exercise the best within us.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/brettst...assessing-your-positives-are-you-flourishing/
 

amitrandive

Well-Known Member
An inner dialogue

- See more at: http://www.tischendorf.com/2010/11/18/constructive-inner-dialogue-for-traders/#sthash.hD1nNGuz.dpuf

An inner dialogue typically reinforces the way you think. So the goal is to consciously expose yourself to thoughts that ultimately will positively impact your trading. Through the use of repetition you can considerably strengthen a positive attitude and sound trading behavior. The beauty of it is the simplicity of the method. It’s entirely up to you which trading mantras you want to adhere to. Here are a few that I strongly believe in and that characterize my thinking as a trader:

  • Kill your greed
  • Isolate yourself from the opinions of others
  • Never chase stocks
  • Always strive for emotional detachment
  • Focus on proper execution
  • There is never a shortage of opportunities
  • Never make excuses
  • Stay in control
  • Don’t compare yourself to others
  • Always use stop losses
  • Standing aside is a position
  • Money comes in bunches
  • Never add to a losing position
  • Stay calm and focused
  • Don’t believe the hype
  • Cultivate independent thinking
  • Be ready for worst case scenarios
  • Nosce te ipsum – Know thyself

A trader should have no opinion. The stronger your opinion, the harder it is to get out of a losing position. – Paul Rotter
 

suri112000

Well-Known Member

Blackhole

Well-Known Member
The Empty Soap Box

One of the most memorable case studies on Japanese management was the case of the empty soap box, which happened in one of Japan's biggest cosmetics companies. The company received a complaint that a consumer had bought a soap box that was empty.

Immediately the authorities isolated the problem to the assembly line, which transported all the packaged boxes of soap to the delivery department. For some reason, one soap box went through the assembly line empty. Management asked its engineers to solve the problem. Post-haste, the engineers worked hard to devise an X-ray machine with high- resolution monitors manned by two people to watch all the soap boxes that passed through the line to make sure they were not empty.

No doubt, they worked hard and they worked fast but they spent whoopee amount to do so. But when a workman was posed with the same problem, did not get into complications of X-rays, etc but instead came out with another solution.

He bought a strong industrial electric fan and pointed it at the assembly line. He switched the fan on, and as each soap box passed the fan, it simply blew the empty boxes out of the line.

Moral of the story: Always look for simple solutions. Devise the simplest possible solution that solves the problem. So, learn to focus on solutions not on problems. "If you look at what you do not have in life, you don't have anything; if you look at what you have in life, you have everything.
 

Blackhole

Well-Known Member
THE KING COBRA AND THE ANTS

Even the strong and mighty cannot face the small ones, when in a large number, at a time



There lived a big king cobra in a dense forest. As usual, he fed on birds' eggs, lizards, frogs and other small creatures. The whole night he hunted the small creatures and when the day broke, he went into his hole to sleep. Gradually, he became fat. And his fat grew to such a measure that it became difficult for him to enter and come out of his hole without being scratched.

Ultimately, he decided to abandon his hole and selected a huge tree for his new home. But there was an ant hill at the root of the tree. It was impossible for king cobra to put up with the ants. So, he went to the ant hill and said, "I'm King Cobra, the king of this forest. I order all of you to go from this place and live somewhere else."

There were other animals, too, around. They began trembling with fear to see such a huge snake before them. They ran for their lives. But the ants paid no heed to his threats. Thousands of ants streamed out of the ant hill. Soon they were swarming all over the body of the king cobra, stinging and biting him. Thousands of thorny pricks all over his body caused unbearable pain to him. The king cobra tried to keep the ants away, but in vain. He wriggled in pain and at last, died a painful death.


We retail traders are ants.......
 
THE KING COBRA AND THE ANTS

Even the strong and mighty cannot face the small ones, when in a large number, at a time



There lived a big king cobra in a dense forest. As usual, he fed on birds' eggs, lizards, frogs and other small creatures. The whole night he hunted the small creatures and when the day broke, he went into his hole to sleep. Gradually, he became fat. And his fat grew to such a measure that it became difficult for him to enter and come out of his hole without being scratched.

Ultimately, he decided to abandon his hole and selected a huge tree for his new home. But there was an ant hill at the root of the tree. It was impossible for king cobra to put up with the ants. So, he went to the ant hill and said, "I'm King Cobra, the king of this forest. I order all of you to go from this place and live somewhere else."

There were other animals, too, around. They began trembling with fear to see such a huge snake before them. They ran for their lives. But the ants paid no heed to his threats. Thousands of ants streamed out of the ant hill. Soon they were swarming all over the body of the king cobra, stinging and biting him. Thousands of thorny pricks all over his body caused unbearable pain to him. The king cobra tried to keep the ants away, but in vain. He wriggled in pain and at last, died a painful death.


We retail traders are ants.......
Ants are united, we are divided