Quote from Cheese:
Sociopath is a wrong categorization to use as the attribute that facilitates successful trading. Emotions are demonized at ET because they appear as untrained impulses that prevent a newcomer or indeed an existing failed trader from becoming successful. And of course emotions back up and give huge feeling to your impulses. Impulses are just that - untrained responses.
The art is in putting your emotions behind your actions in the rational and measured cerebal game of successful trading. You will then find that your emotions will slot in behind your actions of playing successfully. You will feel this as satisfaction.
But in the general theme, which I have expressed before, of being positive and to have self trained and considered actions in your life, this is a choice you can make when you get up in the morning each day.
Nice post. You certainnly moved the thread forward.
There is a lot of "professional" repair work done for those who can afford it.
Two themes emerge. Yours for above the neck and the other for below the neck emotions.
The comments centering on edge and emotional discipline were disappointing.
I think it is possible for a person to "grow" and bring his decision making and behavioral actions into the better balance if he measures his personal efforts above and below the neck.
Below the neck, reality is a consequence. The consequence does not have to reign any longer than the trader wants or needs it to.
RTH is a short portion of the cognitive day.
I recommend using the non RTH to permit trading "growth".
Make two lists. I place skills in the left column and limitations in the right column.
Here is an example:
SA is a skill and opposite it is edges as a limitation.
A scorable ratio of skills/limitations may be had by giving a value to each item on the two columns. This means a spectrum of ratios may be found to exist.
"Growing" would be defined as moving to a better place over time on the spectrum.
The place occupied by OW's three step skills/limitations could be moved to a better place by changing the cause of needing steps 2 and 3. All this means is that a limitation is converted to a skill.
OW comments on those with poorer skills/limitations acquiring a better ratio by buying what he sells.
Think of the price of a system that has few limitations. Most likely it has overcome limitations and converted their consequences to assets called skills.
sociopathic and killer mentalities may not be skills because they have consequences. Very wealthy people have neither of these characteristics as a rule.
I have built, purprosefully,C corporations of people exclusively coming out of a specific sherrif's incarceration program. They also had to join a 12 step program and have a library card. The corp was designed to increase the skills/limitations ratio very rapidly. I always looked at their children's report cards. I always co-signed for their rent, power, water and telephone. Once I had to instruct a bank manager on an error he made. He declined to open an account where the inital deposit was a check I signed. I improved his skills/limitations ratio.
Anyone can make the lists in the columns. Anyone can improve their ratio during non RTH hours.
How hard is it to figure out that an edge is a piece of the system of the market's operation. Some people would have drawdown as a limitation. But wouldn't trading a drawdown segment actually be an opportunity for a profit segment? If you move the drawdown from a limitation to a skill, you would have a higher ratio of skills/limitation.
In Behavioral Finance (BF) anxiety, fear and anger are called "signals". We all monitor and analyze signals.
BF uses these signals to cause a process to begin. The process is named "iterative refinement"of the trading approach. The OP of the thread is doing iterative refinement. He is asking about a below the neck condition or context. It could be there part time as some suggest. If so it is a smaller signal than if it is there all the time.
I was trained to not care if someone could not learn a skill or some knowledge. In my training I had to learn it was not my fault.
The majority of posts in ET are on the topic of limitations. Thread topics are NOT limitation threads always, some are about other things like skills and knowledge.
Working on a personal skill/limitation ratio is not a possibility for most; it is a self examination type thing and can be very defeating for people with closed minds.
If you want a real wake up call, read the Wikipedia definition and posted knowledge on a topic named Technical Analysis. What a total screw up. Part of it was actually used in ET for some purpose.
Markets operate as systems. The variables have granularity. Keynes and Carnap dictate that non continuous systems are finite systems. The algebra for fintie systems was invented as an Algebra in the 1800's by George Boole. So....... etc. .........
All the above items relate to skills. Anything else is a limitation to be overcome.
Potential traders fail because they use myths primarily. Using myths is a limitation.