Changing Your Trading, Changing Your Brain

An excellent article from Alvaro Fernandez takes a look at how cognitive neuroscience and technology are creating an explosion of apps for the brain.  There's an important recognition in this work:  that in changing ourselves, we change our brains.  Nothing in coaching or psychology works--no journaling, no goal-setting, no self-affirmations, no attempts at discipline or self control--unless it results in our rewiring.

If you are trying to change something in your trading, the key question to ask is:  Am I going about this change in a way that is likely to rewire me?  If not, the change won't stick.  Sticking with the same wiring and hoping for different outputs is a formula for frustration.

Cementing a change in trading--or in any other facet of life--requires two things:

1)  A fundamental shift in state of mind and body - The most efficient (if not the most constructive) learning occurs during trauma:  a single event can alter personality in fundamental ways.  Successful change creates positive traumas.

2)  Repetition - Doing new things the same way over time is what turns positive changes into positive habits.  We know we have achieved rewiring when we have cultivated new habits.  If a change is something you are working on, you know you haven't reached rewiring.  It's when changes become habits that they are truly part of us.

Can the change process be radically accelerated through the use of technology?  It's a topic and challenge that I will be exploring over the summer.  During this time, TraderFeed will move to a weekly mode of publication and I look forward to sharing interesting observations and results.  Throughout this time, I will continue writing the Forbes blog.

Thanks, as always, for the interest and support--

Brett
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