Free Rande Howell webinar: Cracking the Secret Code for a Disciplined Trading Mind

Cracking the Secret Code for a Disciplined Trading Mind   Hello Trader,                      It’s the confounding mystery of trading. Everybody has experienced it. You think you are ready, then the trade goes live and you fall apart. And it happens regularly. So, you gather yourself, again, and promise to try harder. You find better teachers, better equipment, better tools. But the pattern of self-defeating behaviors keeps happening. You keep blowing trades up, right when you think you finally have it together. Whether it is entry problems where you let good set-ups pass you by, whether you impulsively jump into trades that don’t match your entry criterion, or whether you hate losing in real time - you are prepared for it until you meet the demon on the road. And with the blink of an eye, you fall into tilt. It’s frustrating. You can feel victory, but you taste defeat.   Or it could be trade management problems where you fall apart when the trade goes against you. You know you’re going to take losses and believe you are prepared for them – until they happen. And then all hell breaks loose. Even the euphoria of winning can steer you off the side of a future cliff. What is going on? Why do you keep making the same mistakes again and again? Why do you keep seizing defeat from the jaws of victory? The answer may surprise you. The Brain You Brought to Trading Is Not Going to Produce the Success You Seek in Trading   That brain of yours was not built to do the job you are asking it to do in trading. It’s like asking a lead balloon to fly. What you need in trading is a brain/mind that is disciplined and patient in the face of Uncertainty. What you bring to trading is a brain built to control outcome for survival’s sake in the short term.  This is an incompatible position. Your brain, right out of the box, is a control freak built by evolution to survive in a dangerous world. To our distant ancestors, controlling their environment was survival itself. They shared their environment with some very large predators that preyed upon them. And our distant ancestors were relatively small comparatively, so we developed the Illusion of Control to feel as if we were in control of our environment.    But remember, we competed for caves (protected living spaces) with these same predators. Awkward. By acting as if we were in control, our ancestors (as a group) finally eradicated these competitors at great cost.  What we got was group survival. Many individuals perished in order for the group to survive. Remember, there were saber-toothed tigers living alongside our relatives a mere 12,000 years ago. This was a world where uncertainty meant danger. And danger was everywhere. The Illusion of Control was good for group survival, not individual survival. You carry this Illusion of Control (that you share with your ancient ancestors) into the trading arena every time you risk capital to an uncertain future. It is a fixed trait. But this most successful trait for our survival back then is maladaptive now. But it’s still with every trader as they trade.   Your Caveman Brain is possessed to control outcome (win) and believe that control is possible (the Illusion of Control). He does not understand long term thriving. He only understands short term survival. And he does not want to lose. To your Inner Caveman losing is not losing capital; it is about losing his life. Money is not a concept our ancient ancestors would understand. Money, instead, is about the power to survive.  Money is about being safe. Money is about being in control of outcome. It is also about status. If you lose, you are somebody else’s food. So, when a trade goes against you, you (in the Cave Man’s brain) are fighting for your life. To your last breath. If you have ever revenge traded, this is exactly what is going on. And this is instinct – an automatic reflex that hijacks the Thinking Brain. It is not a quality of your thinking. Thinking is overwhelmed when your figurative life or money is being threatened.    This is also what is behind entry problems. As a trade warms up, entry becomes imminent. To your Caveman Brain, this is alarming. To enter the trade, you would be risking capital – your life. To your Inner Caveman’s perspective, not getting into the trade stops you from experiencing losing (death by saber-toothed tiger). Remember, your Caveman thinks only in terms of short-term survival. The trading mind needs to be thinking in terms of long-term benefit (probability). And you bring that Caveman Brain to your trading challenges everyday and never acknowledge the bias it brings to the game, much less do anything about it. This is what has to change to crack the code.   Bottom line, unless you train your brain for long term benefit, your default survival instincts from your ancestral Caveman will take over your Thinking Brain when facing a Challenging Moment. And you will continue to experience the survival patterns that have been hardwired into your Emotional Brain. Without intervention, you stay stuck in the same old patterns that stop you from growing a trading psychology that can be comfortable with placing capital at risk to an unknown future that you do not control. Understand, there is nothing wrong with your Thinking Brain or you. Your Thinking Brain just didn’t evolve to do what you are asking it to do. You will have to train it, but first you must understand it. The Shaping of Your Brain During Your Formative Period   The human brain is remarkably unfinished at birth. It is shaped by experience (far more than other social mammalians) to grow into the person you become. When a human infant is born, it is already 9 months developmentally behind a chimpanzee infant at birth. The human will require 9 more months to catch up to the chimp. This period is called external gestation. During that time, the human infant is essentially helpless and needs continual assistance from its family – mostly mom. It is forming from nearly the ground up. From infancy through childhood and early adolescence, the brain is learning who it is from interacting with the environment – mostly in the family of origin.     Here the evolving brain is learning who it is. It is learning its worth. It is learning how it matters. And the truth is that we are all born into a broken world. And your brain’s job is to organize the potential of the newly minted human into a particular Self (that is what you call “you” – just one particular organization of a Self among many).  It is organizing you to survive in the environment of your family of origin – and not the environment of the markets. Survival is different in these two worlds.   The potential that you are born with is shaped into a Self that has the best shot of surviving in the world in which it was born. You may learn to be a victim, a worrier, a perfectionist, or a saboteur of your own life for the sake of your family. (Remember, it is about group survival, not necessarily individual survival). Others will be shaped into competitors, rebels, and alphas. In the world of your family, community, and culture – these may be desirable traits. But not for trading.   This nature/nurture mix will build the brain into a mind that engages the world. This is the brain you bring to trading. And unless you are very lucky, this is not the mind that brings success in trading. It may bring success in other areas of your life, but trading success depends on certain factors that are rare naturally.    You live in the Illusion of Control because the Thinking Brain and you are convinced that you are a winner and not a loser. Then this mind is exposed to the markets and risking capital and the Illusion of Control is busted. You find you can’t make winning happen by concentrated effort in this brave new world. This is the trap traders have to work themselves out of. What a Brain Built for Trading Looks Like   The brain built for trading is focused on performance rather than winning and losing. Traders do not have control whether they win or lose – this is the Illusion of Control from our Caveman ancestors. But what a trader does have control over is the mind they bring to the moment of performance. Winning is only landing on the right side of probability relative to you. It is no reason to get excited.  Losing is only landing on the wrong side of probability relative to you. Neither winning nor losing are about you. It is only aspects of probability. And you are going to have to make this the new norm. It is no reason to feel the need for revenge. If you focus on performance you will develop a psychological edge that will drive your method edge – rather than sabotage it.    Trading is a performance. Winning and losing are probabilities. You will have worth and you will matter as a human being whether you win or lose. Winning and losing are no longer about how you judge yourself. Your job is to extract more capital out of the markets than you give back. You do that by managing the mind you bring to performance. Imagine – trading no longer becomes drama. It is driven by a mind focused on performance – something that you can, in fact, control. This is the psychological edge you need to crack the code of consistent profitability. Why not get started now? [Click here]( (and scroll down a bit) to view our monthly video and then attend our free webinar on June 13. Register for the free webinar by [clicking here](. Learning starts now! Rande [Facebook](  [Linkedin](   Rande Howell Traders State of Mind www.tradersstateofmind.com   Free Rande Howell webinar in June 2024 Title - Cracking the Secret Code for a Disciplined Trading Mind Speaker: Rande Howell Date/Time: [Thursday, June 13, 4:30-5:30pm EDT]( IMPORTANT! The time shown is in U.S. Eastern Daylight Saving Time! Description:  After you learn how to trade technically, you are ready to finally make some money consistently. When that automatically doesn’t happen you wander, looking around for what holds you back in your trading. And, if you are smart, this is when you discover that you are the problem holding you back from the promises of trading – at least your brain is.   Successful trading requires that your psychology of trading (of winning and losing) must be addressed for you to achieve success. You discover that the brain you brought to trading simply is not built to bring you success in trading. That brain/mind has to be built. It is unnatural for the brain, sculpted by evolution, to be fit for duty in the world of probability that trading represents. Until you face this, you are fighting ancient and instinctive forces that will simply thwart your best attempts at success in trading. Come learn what you are missing that holds you back. Then learn what you can do to build the mind that successfully engages the uncertainty and risk of trading. It’s a journey you must take if you are to be successful. Come sign up for this free webinar and begin the journey to a powerful new way of engaging Uncertainty. Register now. Please [click here]( to register for this free webinar. IMPORTANT! The time shown is in U.S. Eastern Daylight Saving Time. This Month's Free Video  Cracking the Secret Code for a Disciplined Trading Mind You’re at that critical moment. Game is on. You know you can handle this. You think to yourself, “I’ve got this”. This time you are ready. Then, in the flash of a moment, you’re not. You hold your breath and things fall apart – again. Once again, you have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. You are confounded by how this meltdown can keep happening. You are so close to victory. What stands in your way? You know in your bones you can do this. But you keep repeating the same self-defeating pattern again and again. Do you really want to know how to solve this problem so you can become the trader you know you can be? Watch this video from Rande Howell and learn what is stopping you from becoming the trader you see glimpses of. Watch now. Please [click here]( (and scroll down a bit) to view the video. Developing Traders State of Mind Group Course - Summer, 2024 The emotional brain is built to seek safety in a dangerous world. The world that it was created for has long since disappeared. It developed a hair-trigger to the fight/flight response because that is what was needed for survival. Now, it has been taken out of the jungle (where risk meant danger) and is being asked to act civilized in a world of probability - where risk is not lethal. Without re-training and re-programming the emotional limbic system, this is not going to happen. It is built to react to danger quickly. It was never built to ponder your rules when it is experiencing vulnerability, discomfort, and fear. It was programmed to act from your survival instinct.  Until this is done, your emotional brain will continue to hijack your thinking brain when you feel the discomfort of uncertainty and risk. This is your silent partner. The question is: Are you going to try to continue to pretend it's not part of your trading mind? Or, are you ready to re-program it for the modern world of trading and probability. Fortunately, this can be done. The Developing Traders State of Mind Group Course Teaches You How to Master Reactive Emotions The Group Course has been called a wake-up call by many traders. Most simply have no idea how the brain and mind work to produce performance in the clutch with risk on. You learn here. It's more than a wake-up call - it a door that opens you to a whole new world. You learn how the emotional brain (so focused on survival) needs to be handled to become an effective working partner with the thinking brain. This course is eye-opening. I had no idea how to fix the problems I had with my trading until this course. Learning how to manage emotions is only the start. You learn how to create a mind built to manage uncertainty. Bottom line is that I know longer sabotage myself and have become profitable. I wish I had taken the group course a long time ago. It's a difference maker. SD From the start you learn how to calm survival emotions down before they become big and hijack your trading mind. That's just the first step. The major benefit is that you learn how to create a mind built for trading, rather than survival in the past. This is what has to happen for success in trading. You have been using a brain/mind created for circumstances that no longer exist. What is needed is a brain/mind built for probability management. Where you learn to become comfortable with the discomfort of uncertainty rather than triggering to your survival instinct. This is what every trader, to be successful, has to learn. All those who register now will be enrolled in the Summer 2024 Group Course, which has its 1st Group Meeting on June 6. Our next Group will begin in September. The survival Instinct is not going to just go away. It is your partner. Do you want to learn to work with it so that it helps you to become the trader you can be? [Please Click here to register ]( the Group Course. [Please Click here to view a video about the Group Course or for more information.]( The DTSM Group Course teaches the same basic skills that are taught in my individual course, but is only $1195. This can be spread out as five payments of $239/each over a 10-week time period. It's a whole lot of training for a reasonable cost. SPECIAL NOTE REGARDING PAYMENT - PayPal CANNOT be used as a payment method for this Group Course since PayPal does not allow for rebilling. If you have any questions regarding this, please contact Delores at delores@mytradersstateofmind.com     Mindful Trading: Mastering Your Emotions and the Inner Game Author: J. Rande Howell, MEd., LPC If you know how to trade when not in the pressure of trading, but you have not been able to trade live from a calm, detached, and disciplined state of mind, this book will open your eyes. Mindful Trading actually shows you HOW to develop a peak performance state of mind specifically for trading. This book gets in the head of a trader. You will meet a number of real life traders who have overcome self doubt, fear, and impulsiveness. You will see how they overcame self-limiting beliefs and began trading from an empowered state of mind. You will discover your core beliefs that actually trade your system and methodology. And without change at this fundamental level, old self-limiting patterns of thought and belief re-assert themselves shortly after your brain pushes off any "tricks and tips" you learned from self-help seminars. It is this change at the organization of meaning and biology that makes this book so different. A number of disciplines are folded into a unified process that really gets at long term change. Those disciplines include neuro-biology, emotional intelligence, ontological reconstruction of the self, attachment theory and the meaning of the self, and Jungian archetypes. In Mindful Trading, imbedded in self-limiting beliefs, you are carried through a change process that transforms traders mired in mediocrity to a re-organization of the mind for peak performance trading. Mindful Trading is available both as an [Audio book]( a [paper book]( and a [downloadable e-book](. [Read an excerpt from Mindful Trading]( free and you get to look inside a trader's mind) And consider the companion study tool: the  [Mindful Trading Companion]( [e-Workbook!](   Explore a Trader's State of Mind Coaching Relationship with Rande Howell This is a personalized course for the trader who is ready to move beyond being stuck in self limiting beliefs. If you have recognized that it is you that stands in the way of your becoming a more successful trader, then this challenge can become an opportunity for re-invention of yourself as a trader, rather than something to avoid. It's like a door opening to an entirely new world. Great athletes recognize that the mental aspect of their game requires a performance coach for them to reach their potential. Trading is the same. Self-limiting beliefs have to be rooted out and changed - and a peak performance mindset has to be developed. It's all part of the training. Having a methodology that gives you an edge is not enough. You have to develop your mind so that it gives you the psychological edge to use your methodology and platform so that the uncertainty found in trading favors you. This is trading beyond fear. It is trading from a disciplined, impartial, patient, and courageous state of mind. Without emotional regulation training, this can take years (if ever) to achieve on your own. Teasing apart uncertainty from fear is simply something that the brain will not do on its own. The psychology to this has to be developed...or you stay stuck in the same old self-fulfilling prophesies of mediocrity. Do you want to move beyond fear and trade from a calm, detached, and disciplined state of mind?  If you are seriously considering registering for the Individual Course, then [click here to check out a free, no obligation consult with Rande Howell.]( get to see how this powerful technology of the mind can move your trading to the next level. To make this free consult productive for you, I recommend that you first attend one of my free webinars. This will lay down a lot of groundwork so that when you speak with me -- you'll be hitting on all cylinders. Also, reading my book - Mindful Trading - is advised.     [Website]( Book]( & Interviews]( Videos]( rande@mytradersstateofmind.com | [www.tradersstateofmind.com]( [By joining you get to keep connected to this powerful training process for the development of the potential you have as a trader. And if you decide differently, you can always un-subscribe. If you're a student of trading, this newsletter is a powerful tool for your development.]( Empowered Horizons | 1824 Prescott Ct. | Iron Station, NC 28080 US [Unsubscribe]( | [Update Profile]( | [Constant Contact Data Notice]( [Constant Contact](