The Daily Trading Coach

CHAPTER 1 Change: The Process and

the Practice 3

Lesson 1: Draw on Emotion to Become a Change Agent 4

Lesson 2: Psychological Visibility and Your Relationship

with Your Trading Coach 7

Lesson 3: Make Friends with Your Weakness 9

Lesson 4: Change Your Environment, Change Yourself 11

Lesson 5: Transform Emotion by Trace-Formation 14

Lesson 6: Find the Right Mirrors 17

Lesson 7: Change Our Focus 20

Lesson 8: Create Scripts for Life Change 23

Lesson 9: How to Build Your Self-Confidence 25

Lesson 10: Five Best Practices for Effecting and

Sustaining Change 29

Resources 32

CHAPTER 2 Stress and Distress: Creative

Coping for Traders 33

Lesson 11: Understanding Stress 33

Lesson 12: Antidotes for Toxic Trading Assumptions 37

Lesson 13: What Causes the Distress That Interferes

with Trading Decisions? 40

Lesson 14: Keep a Psychological Journal 43

Lesson 15: Pressing: When You Try Too Hard to

Make Money 45

Lesson 16: When You’re Ready to Hang It Up 48

Lesson 17: What to Do When Fear Takes Over 51

Lesson 18: Performance Anxiety: The Most Common

Trading Problem 54

Lesson 19: Square Pegs and Round Holes 58

Lesson 20: Volatility of Markets and Volatility of

Mood 61

Resources 64

CHAPTER 3 Psychological Well-Being:

Enhancing Trading Experience 67

Lesson 21: The Importance of Feeling Good 67

Lesson 22: Build Your Happiness 71

Lesson 23: Get into the Zone 73

Lesson 24: Trade with Energy 77

Lesson 25: Intention and Greatness: Exercise the Brain

through Play 79

Lesson 26: Cultivate the Quiet Mind 83

Lesson 27: Build Emotional Resilience 86

Lesson 28: Integrity and Doing the Right Thing 89

Lesson 29: Maximize Confidence and Stay with

Your Trades 91

Lesson 30: Coping—Turn Stress into Well-Being 95

Resources 97

CHAPTER 4 Steps toward Self-Improvement:

The Coaching Process 99

Lesson 31: Self-Monitor by Keeping a Trading Journal 99

Lesson 32: Recognize Your Patterns 103

Lesson 33: Establish Costs and Benefits to Patterns 106

Lesson 34: Set Effective Goals 109

Lesson 35: Build on Your Best: Maintain a Solution Focus 111 Lesson 36: Disrupt Old Problem Patterns 114 Lesson 37: Build Your Consistency by Becoming Rule-Governed 118 Lesson 38: Relapse and Repetition 121 Lesson 39: Create a Safe Environment for Change 123 Lesson 40: Use Imagery to Advance the Change Process 126 Resources 130 CHAPTER 5 Breaking Old Patterns: Psychodynamic Frameworks for Self-Coaching 131 Lesson 41: Psychodynamics: Escape the Gravity of Past Relationships 132 Lesson 42: Crystallize Our Repetitive Patterns 135 Lesson 43: Challenge Our Defenses 138 Lesson 44: Once Again, with Feeling: Get Distance from Your Problem Patterns 141 Lesson 45: Make the Most Out of Your Coaching Relationship 144 Lesson 46: Find Positive Trading Relationships 147 Lesson 47: Tolerate Discomfort 150 Lesson 48: Master Transference 153 Lesson 49: The Power of Discrepancy 156 Lesson 50: Working Through 158 Resources 161 CHAPTER 6 Remapping the Mind: Cognitive Approaches to Self-Coaching 163 Lesson 51: Schemas of the Mind 164 Lesson 52: Use Feeling to Understand Your Thinking 167 Lesson 53: Learn from Your Worst Trades 170 Lesson 54: Use a Journal to Restructure Our Thinking 172 Lesson 55: Disrupt Negative Thought Patterns 176 Lesson 56: Reframe Negative Thought Patterns 179

Lesson 57: Use Intensive Guided Imagery to Change Thought Patterns 182 Lesson 58: Challenge Negative Thought Patterns with the Cognitive Journal 185 Lesson 59: Conduct Cognitive Experiments to Create Change 188 Lesson 60: Build Positive Thinking 190 Resources 193 CHAPTER 7 Learning New Action Patterns: Behavioral Approaches to Self-Coaching 195 Lesson 61: Understand Your Contingencies 196 Lesson 62: Identify Subtle Contingencies 199 Lesson 63: Harness the Power of Social Learning 201 Lesson 64: Shape Your Trading Behaviors 204 Lesson 65: The Conditioning of Markets 207 Lesson 66: The Power of Incompatibility 211 Lesson 67: Build on Positive Associations 214 Lesson 68: Exposure: A Powerful and Flexible Behavioral Method 217 Lesson 69: Extend Exposure Work to Build Skills 220 Lesson 70: A Behavioral Framework for Dealing with Worry 223 Resources 226 CHAPTER 8 Coaching Your Trading Business 227 Lesson 71: The Importance of Startup Capital 227 Lesson 72: Plan Your Trading Business 231 Lesson 73: Diversify Your Trading Business 233 Lesson 74: Track Your Trading Results 236 Lesson 75: Advanced Scorekeeping for Your Trading Business 240

Lesson 76: Track the Correlations of Your Returns 244 Lesson 77: Calibrate Your Risk and Reward 248 Lesson 78: The Importance of Execution in Trading 250 Lesson 79: Think in Themes—Generating Good Trading Ideas 254 Lesson 80: Manage the Trade 257 Resources 259 CHAPTER 9 Lessons from Trading Professionals: Resources and Perspectives on Self-Coaching 261 Lesson 81: Leverage Core Competencies and Cultivate Creativity 261 Lesson 82: I Alone Am Responsible 264 Lesson 83: Cultivate Self-Awareness 271 Lesson 84: Mentor Yourself for Success 275 Lesson 85: Keep Detailed Records 279 Lesson 86: Learn to Be Fallible 283 Lesson 87: The Power of Research 286 Lesson 88: Attitudes and Goals, the Building Blocks of Success 290 Lesson 89: A View from the Trading Firms 295 Lesson 90: Use Data to Improve Trading Performance 300 Resources 305 CHAPTER 10 Looking for the Edge: Finding Historical Patterns in Markets 307 Lesson 91: Use Historical Patterns in Trading 308 Lesson 92: Frame Good Hypotheses with the Right Data 310 Lesson 93: Excel Basics 313 Lesson 94: Visualize Your Data 317 Lesson 95: Create Your Independent and Dependent Variables 320 Lesson 96: Conduct Your Historical Investigations 324

Lesson 97: Code the Data 327 Lesson 98: Examine Context 329 Lesson 99: Filter Data 332 Lesson 100: Make Use of Your Findings 334