Quote from Duref Mudgins:
But even more I object, once more, with mind-dulling repetition, to the notion that you have to become anxiety-free before you can trade successfully.
Je repete: the experience of developing and trading a robust and profitable system thrusts any and all psychological issues into the background. The problems you address arise in traders who have no reason to be confident that they are trading an approach which has positive expectation.
The process of converting what you think is an edge into unambiguous rules, simplifying those rules to practicality, and testing and optimizing them eliminates all doubt about your ability and prospects as a trader.
This is akin to the advice Richard Bandler gave to a hospital patient who could not get released because he insisted upon drinking imaginary blood in the cafeteria. Bandler didn't tell him to quit drinking blood. He told him to do it in private. We are private traders because most of us need to practice in private.
I have panic attacks in public places for no good reason, but I never have them when I am trading. Perhaps because I don't understand people. But I do understand trading.
So I urge those who think psychological issues are behind their trading probems to seek a system development coach, not a psych counselor. The worst that can happen to you is that you might find out that your presumed edge is more fucked up than you are. Which might even make you feel better.
Mostly I agree with what you have written here .... without a robust systematic approach that is directly linked to price, a Trader has no chance of maintaining consistent profitability.
Yes I agree that there are those who believe that they have a good robust system, but their knowledge of how price performs is so incomplete their system does not stand a single chance of maintaining profitability and will destroy them in the end.
Didn't I read in your posts that your systems only remain profitable for so long before they require a replacement and at the wonderful age of 67 you are still leaping out of bed at 3am with a mind crammed with magnificent new ideas for systems hungry for coding and back testing.
DM, you wrote...
"I have panic attacks in public places for no good reason, but I never have them when I am trading. Perhaps because I don't understand people. But I do understand trading."
Doesn't the above paragraph highlight the conundrum.
I was fortunate [or not as the Reader might decide] to have been baptized at a youngish age by a Coach who had a profound effect upon my life, and no the Coach did not teach me how to play the game [the equivalent of building trading systems] he used other people for that task.
It was as if one day I was relying upon my natural abilities alone and the next day I was pondered the thought of what it takes to really master my game.
The first step was to find the fun and joy in everything I did, because without that nothing is worth doing or acquiring. And so I created that principle belief of fun and joy, and it has always stayed with me.
So I ask you DM, do you want to continue to be the great systemic Trader that you are, who is on full alert at 3am, who is always changing systems, who finds a reliance on vodka normal, who suffers panic attacks in public places ......[ I pulled this info from your posts]
Do you follow tennis ...
Watch Andy Murray playing the other 3 or 4 top seeds.
Andy has the correct build for modern tennis.
His stroke play and serves are wonderful and so top marks to who ever taught him how to hold a racket, move around the court and hit the ball [the equivalent of a trading system]
But Andy's attitude is all wrong for beating Roger Federer or Rafa Nadal on a consistent basis.
He permits his own frustration to defeat him and since this frustration remains evident in his press interviews it is probably a fair assumption that it spills over into the rest of his life and he carries it 24 /7.
Andy now has a monumental task ahead of him to change his attitude compared to a few years ago when he was an up and coming bright star of the court.
Now he knows he can be No #1 but he is looking through a glass door and he alone holds the only key.
His frustration fuels his temper and his temper fuels his frustration.
In short Andy has allowed himself to become a victim of his own thought pattern.
The ransom he must pay is ... he must change his behavior and in order to achieve this, Andy must first rearrange his thought patterns.
