Last time, I talked about bringing intensity to the thought process in order to amplify the mind power. While this is simple to understand in theory, it is going to take a lot more to pull intensity out of thin air to power your thought process. In my Grand Canyon trip, it was a matter of survival; therefore, my will to survive bring forth the intensity I needed to push myself onward. Without the will, I would just lie down and give up.
As a trader, how do we bring forth our will to raise intensity to our thought process so we can follow through with the proper trading process to succeed in trading?
Before I go on, I like to remind everyone that intensity in thought process is a double-edge sword. If the intensity lies on good intention with a positive thought process, you can create wonderful things; on the other hands, it can bring darkness to your life that are filled with sadness, sickness, and destruction (of self and other) if the intensity lies on bad intention with a negative outlook of life.
We already know how to bring forth intensity automatically by getting emotional about things or events. If we are happy, our day lightens up more than normal; that is intensity. If you encounter a bad news that affects you deeply, your day is filled with sorrow, sadness, and anger; that is intensity.
Ok I get it. So how do we summon intensity to help our trading mind without getting emotional about things. As you’ve already told us zillion of times, emotion is bad for trading!
Knowing that you can summon intensity with the emotion gives you clue that intensity is yours to take if only you know how to tap into it.
Ok, how?
By using the power of focus on your thought process. You summon your will to “focus”. When you get emotional about something, your thought process is being “focused” on one thing. The only one thing that you are emotional about. Because of the mind & body relationship, the intense focus of your thought process spills over to your body and cause you to have a body reaction such as butterflies in your stomach, an ecstatic episode, etc.
Your will is your 100% commitment to a single thought process that overrides other thought processes in your head. Even your natural mind (aka ego) do not have enough power to overcome it.
In my Grand Canyon example, I was 100% committed to survival. I wanted to survive so much that I found a solution to fight off the weakness of my starving body by focusing only on my foot and the one step movement. There were no other thought than my foot and the one step. I was free of my ego and I didn’t even know it. By the time I was at the top, I didn’t care how I look or how I appeared to others (caring about what other people think is the ego domain). I grabbed anyone who walked by me, which was something I wouldn’t normally, and asked for information.
However, in our normal trading day, we are far from fighting for physical survival. We are only fighting for a number that resides in our banking system- money. Most of us aren’t foolish enough to put 100% of the money into the stock market. Most will put aside money for general living expenses and invest some into the market. While losing the money allocated to the stock market may put a dent to your life-style, it is not going to kill you or put you on the street. Hence, most lack the will to draw on the intensity to the thought process to improve trading success.
“Oh well, I don’t need the money right away, I can wait out the drawdown for all the stocks in the portfolio,” was the usual thought process for a lot of people. Basically, a lot of us don’t mind being a bagholder.
Of course I mind!
Ok, let me clarify. A lot of us prefer to take the risk of being a bagholder than to take the effort to do the right thing by cutting losses quickly.
Hey you! What about your $AMRN and $LRAD trades? Ain’t you a bagholder on them as well?
Oop! You got me there!
But there is one difference between my being a bagholder on $AMRN and $LRAD and most bagholders in general. I’ve “assigned” $AMRN and $LRAD as position trades with the express purpose of waiting out their fundamental success from the very beginning.
Yes, my position trades on $AMRN and $LRAD are underwater from my re-entry point but I’ve done my research and am willing to allocate a percentage of my portfolio for “speculation” purpose.
Meanwhile, s lot of bagholders hold ALL their stocks in their portfolio and ride the whole portfolio down along with the general market correction. In my humble opinion, this is poor portfolio management,
Do you see the difference?
Like I said, most people only have their investment portion of their money in their portfolio; therefore, while they don’t like the pain of the drawdown of all their stocks in the portfolio, the drawdown won’t kill them.
“I can wait it out.” is the usual response.
It is your money and it is your freedom to manage it the way your ego wants it.
But do you catch my drift here?
There is absolutely no incentive for most people to summon their will to become a better trader/investor. Nada!
Simply because the effort is very hard.
It is very hard to focus intensely on the proper trading thought to overcome the ego desires to be right.
It is very hard to maintain the focus on the proper trading thought to overcome the ego desires to be right.
It is very hard because it will require a lot of your energy and commitment to stay focus. Most people will prefer to engage in other forms of entertainment than to waste it on trading discipline.
For all I know, you work very hard during your day and you just don’t have the energy and time to maintain the focus for the trading effort.
The point I’m making here is that to have a shot at becoming a successful trader/investor, you have to take the extra miles to get there. And most successful people know that. Those who make millions or billions in the business world know that; that is why they hire the best money manager they can find to manage their money. They know they don’t have the time to become a successful trader on their own.
But if you want to manage your own money, you have to step up. You have to summon the will to focus on the proper trading process and do the right thing.
The intensity is there for you to take it to your trading mind. You just need to take the effort to focus on it.
At the end of the day, the question you have to ask yourself is, “do you want to take the effort to overcome the inertia and your natural mind to become a successful trader?”
It is all up to you.
You are what you think.
Your reality is a sum total of how you think.
You can enhance your reality by bringing positive intensity to your thought process or you can let your reality stay the same by remaining in the same thought process you have now.
But even then, spending the time and hard work can only increase your probability of success. It doesn’t guarantee success. Your ego is a very powerful entity. You may think you have it under control using the intensity I’ve discussed. But your ego has patience. It can wait for your moment of weakness. Jesse Livermore, one of the past great trader in our financial world, succumbed to his ego at the end.
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Keep it simple. Just bring enough intensity/focus so you can bypass your natural mind to cut losses quickly. Cutting losses quickly is by far the most important and yet a simple action to perform on your way to become a successful trader. As we all know, simple is not the same as easy.
My 2 cents.
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