Category Archives: Trading Psychology

Not All Negative Emotions Are Problems

I recently spoke with an experienced, insightful trader who was experiencing performance anxiety.  He was so concerned with losing money that he failed to follow his own rules regarding entering positions, taking profits, etc.  As a result, he chronically felt frustrated, because his ideas were good, but his trading was mediocre. More here – TraderFeed

How to Overcome Your Fear of Failure

A client (who I’ll call “Alex”) asked me to help him prepare to interview for a CEO role with a start-up. It was the first time he had interviewed for the C-level, and when we met, he was visibly agitated. I asked what was wrong, and he explained that he felt “paralyzed” by his fear…

Bruce Lee on Self-Actualization and the Crucial Difference Between Pride and Self-Esteem

“Real self-esteem is an integration of an inner value with things in the world around you,” Anna Deavere Smith wrote in her invaluable advice to young artists. But how does one master the intricacies of that integration? That’s what legendary Chinese-American martial artist, philosopher, and filmmaker Bruce Lee (November 27, 1940–July 20, 1973) explores in one of the pieces…

Kahlil Gibran on Silence, Solitude, and the Courage to Know Yourself

“In much of your talking, thinking is half murdered. For thought is a bird of space, that in a cage of words may indeed unfold its wings but cannot fly.” More here – Brain Pickings

Failure Found to Be an “Essential Prerequisite” for Success

The recipe for succeeding in any given field is hardly a mystery: good ideas, hard work, discipline, imagination, perseverance and maybe a little luck. Oh, and let’s not forget failure, which Dashun Wang and his colleagues at Northwestern University call “the essential prerequisite for success” in a new paper that, among other things, is based…

I Could Watch This All Day

Thinking About Moby Dick

This quote sprung up as being particularly apt about trading – “There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method.”