Trading an Emotional Battlefield - How I Manage Mine

There is something about trading that can expose our most profound emotional issues within minutes.

This combination of success, failure, risk, regret, and ruin is happening within minutes/hours/days.

1/x #ES_F #NQ_F $SPY

My primary business is helping people overcome obstacles to reach peak performance - trading has pushed me to examine my own personal limits.

Here is what I've found.

For starters, we must understand some processes of the mind:

From "Emotional Intelligence" by Daniel Goleman

From there, these signals activate the part of our animal brain that acts on instinct, out of self preservation.

Here is where the real trouble starts... these experiences are imprinted deep in the memory.

There are failures in my past that I'm still battling subconsciously.

Not only that, but these memories are all flowing together, messy, disorganized, and falsely triggered by a situation that isn't remotely dangerous...

provided we mind some vital rules

What do I do today to manage these emotional hiccups?

Morning routine

Up 6am, make the bed
Coffee - healthy breakfast
Morning workout - usually uphill sprints and pushups/pull-ups to burn off all excess stress hormones
Mindfulness exercise (more on that in a minute)

It's important to do the strenuous stuff before the mindfulness as you ideally want to burn off all excess stress hormones ahead of time.

(sometimes I will also do my market analysis before workout if it looks like a volatile day - anything to clear the stress and bias)

8:30am Start to formulate a plan from larger timeframe charts all the way down to 5 minute, I also plan my position sizes for the day
See what the buzz is on twitter for the day
9:20am another 3-5 minute breathing exercise with a focus on clearing any bias.
9:30am Ready

My mindfulness exercises I've shared publicly before but the clearing cognitive biases for me is the most powerful. This is one of a 5 part series.

You can find a number of other topics here, not many people were watching so I decided to stop filming them but if you find them useful let me know and I'll start sharing them again.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZYfFL0YjGRmnHUhKb0bPbw/videos

Also, find a mentor, someone that you can learn from that is already successful. With stocks @traderstewie @AOTtrades has been instrumental in my development and learning.

He's absolutely fearless, don't let the cartoon baby fool you!

Also, a thoughtful teacher and kind leader.

With futures, @Reveretrading @PrivatePRT has been someone that has taken my understanding of risk management, emotional capital, and discipline to the next level. Not only that but a great person that goes out of his way to help others.

There are other books on this topic directly related to trading such as @DeniseKShull 's fantastic book "Market Mind Games" which delves into emotional contexts around trading. I also found great insights from @TaraSwart 's new book "The Source"

I've spent 25 years in and out of the market. My first trades were at 16. Here and there, usually losing money.

I spent a long time thinking I could learn enough TA or Fundamentals to make money in the stock market.

Nothing worked until I began to understand my own behavior.

This quote rings true for me in life, and in trading.

I had to do whatever it took to find some space.

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

Viktor Frankl

There's more I will add to this later but I'm up against hte clock! Have a great weekend!

Please share whatever you do to help in this area, I'd love to learn more!

There is of course many other very important elements related to the trade itself.

Position sizing (which I do during morning plan)
Patience on entry
Patience on exit for winners (still struggle with this)
...and many more.

I remain a work in progress