How Super Traders Think Differently
InvestorEducation / Learn to Trade Jan 02, 2008 - 11:56 AM GMTBy: Nazy_Massoud
Would you allow an 8-year-old to run your financial matters?
Have you ever wondered why some traders make a lot of money and others do not?
Have you ever seen two traders with similar strategies and tools, yet one is successful and the other is not?
Why do you think this happens? On the outside, it might look like bad luck, a bad market or possibly a lousy system.
On the inside, it's a different story.
Have you ever heard of lottery winners who within several years go bankrupt? Most people do not have the internal capacity to create, hold and manage large amounts of money. Any success for them will be short-lived.
Your internal capacity is based on the programming you received as a child.
When you were born, you did not have independent thoughts. You were taught how to think about money by your parents, siblings, friends, schools, authority figures, communities and cultures. That programming now forms the basis of your current thoughts, beliefs, fears, actions and emotions having to do with money.
Before your teenage years, your programs and beliefs were already in place. Your success will be based on them, until you decide to change them.
Most people are using programs that they were taught as a young kid. Would you allow a 6- or 8-year-old to run your financial matters?
Let me illustrate this to you. Please respond to the following questions with the first thing that comes to your mind.
- How do you feel about money?
- When you think about money, what are you focusing on?
- your opportunities or
- your debts
- When you think about wealthy people, what is the first thing that comes to your mind?
- Do you believe that there is enough for everyone? Or, do you think there is a zero sum gain?
- How much do you think you are entitled to?
What did you come up with?
If you truly feel that there is enough money to go around, you deserve as much as you want and that there is no ceiling to your income, then you are a super trader.
However, if you feel one or more of the following:
- Money is dirty
- Rich people are:
- Dishonest
- Cruel
- There's not enough money to go around
- I do not deserve it
Then I would imagine that you are experiencing some challenges with your financial situation.
How can you increase your internal capacity for money and success? Let me introduce you to a simple, yet powerful formula. Understanding this formula is the key to your financial success. The formula is:
T-> A-> R -> H
Thoughts to Actions.
Actions lead to Results .
Repeated Results Lead to Habits.
If you want to change your results, your will also need to change your thoughts. Albert Einstein said, “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.”
In order to change your programming or your thoughts, you first have to be aware of them. Many things we do are based on habits. We are on autopilot most of the time. We need to figure out where those habits are coming from and whether they are serving us.
When we first acquired these beliefs and programs, they served a purpose. Now that we are in a different place in our lives, we need to examine them to see if they still service our needs or whether we need an upgrade.
How do we receive our programming? There are three primary ways in which our thoughts are influenced.
1. Verbal: This describes what you "heard" when you were young. You may have listened to things like:
- Money is the root of all evil.
- Rich people are greedy.
- You have to work hard to make money.
- You can't be rich and spiritual.
- Save your money for a rainy day.
- We can't afford it.
- Money doesn't grow on trees.
- What am I, made of money?
- Money doesn't buy happiness.
- Money talks.
- The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
Most of the statements you heard when you were young are still with you today in your subconscious mind. They are also running your financial life.
Have you seen traders who make a lot of money and cannot keep it? It may be because they believe it is greedy to have so much money.
2. Modeling: What did you "see" when you were young? How did your parents or the people who were close to you manage their money? Were they spenders or savers? Did they invest their money or gamble it away? How were your beliefs shaped by what you saw?
It reminds me of a story.
A young bride is preparing a pot roast for dinner. Her husband watches as she carefully cuts each end off the roast before putting it in the roasting pan and placing it in the oven.
“Why did you cut the ends off the roast?” he asks.
“I don't know,” she replies, “that's just the way my mother taught me.” The next time the young woman talks to her mother, she asks about trimming the ends off the pot roast.
“I don't know why,” her mother answers, “but that's how your grandmother always did it.” On a visit to her grandmother, the young woman asks about the pot roast.
“Oh,” replies the grandmother, “I had to do that simply because my roasting pan was too small to fit an entire roast.”
Have you ever done things without knowing why you do them?
If you are not getting the results that you want, there is good news for you. You do not have to do things the same old way. You have a choice. You can change the rules and do whatever works for you.
3. Specific Events: What did you "experience" when you were young? Did your parents have fights over money? Did you associate money with anger or pain?
One of my clients associated money with being very mean and greedy. He associated not having money with being nice and spiritual. We worked on those issues and now he has a new set of programs that serve him. He realizes that money by itself is a form of exchange and that it is neutral. How he deals with it is a choice.
Beliefs are neither true or false or right or wrong. They are merely opinions that have been passed down to you from generation to generation. Knowing this, you can choose to release any thought, belief or way of being that is not supportive to your wealth and replace it with one that is.
You can adopt new and more successful beliefs. Remember, thoughts lead to actions which lead to results. Repeated results lead to successful habits.
You can choose to think and act in a way that will create the results that you desire . Develop a super trader mentality and fulfill your own expectations.
Here is to making success your habit™,
By Nazy Massoud
PS. For more Mental Edge tips and reports on how to have more profitable trades, go to www.MentalEdgeTrading.com .
Copyright © 2007 Nazy Massoud
ABOUT THE AUTHOR : Nazy Massoud, a Wall Street Insider, shows traders, investors and hedge fund managers how to develop the mental edge to execute trades more profitably. For more tips and a FREE report on "The 3 Biggest Psychological Triggers That Can Make or Break a Trader," go to www.MentalEdgeTrading.com .
Nazy Massoud Archive |
© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.
