Best Trading Practice: Intensifying Trading Focus

 

A little while back, I wrote a post on training the brain by building intentionality.  Since that time, I have been working with wearable brain-wave biofeedback (neurofeedback) devices to cultivate and sustain mindsets that enable me to trade at my best.  This is a little bit like physical training to perform best in basketball or football.  You still have to learn and practice the plays, but if you're out of shape, even the best playbooks won't lead to scores.  A missing piece in much of trading psychology is training to get into cognitive shape.

The software accompanying my device keeps score and lets me know the percentage of time I am calm and focused, my ability to bounce back from distraction, etc.  I have tried various meditative practices to increase the percentage of time I am operating in "the zone".  These practices to quiet the mind have been helpful, but have not necessarily helped me sustain a calm alpha-wave state.

A breakthrough occurred when I stopped trying to empty my mind and instead engaged in prayer during my brain training session.  Because of my Jewish tradition, prayer is familiar to me as a way of connecting to our souls and stepping back from our egos.  This is a state common to all major religions and spiritual traditions that I have found to be essential to effective trading.  In my brain training session where I accessed prayer, I filled my mind with love and appreciation and focused only on those feelings.  This was much more like a lovingkindness meditation than a meditation of inner silence.

Amazingly, in the state of emotional overflowing, I maintained a calm, focused state for 93% of the timed exercise--much higher than during any other occasion.  What kept me in the zone was not trying to rid myself of emotion, but filling myself with positive emotion.  Indeed, following the exercise, I felt unusually clearheaded and settled.  I recognized this as exactly the state I'm in when I'm trading very well.

What if we've had it wrong all this time in trading psychology?  What if the answer to improving trading is not reducing/eliminating emotion or whipping ourselves into discipline and conformity to "process"?  What if our most positive trading occurs when we are in our most positive psychology?  What if clarity comes from immersion in feelings of love and connection, not in empty quiet?  For some people, that might come from prayer.  For others, it might come from filling their hearts and minds with love for family members or connection to communities.  

Most of all, what if what we do to train ourselves to achieve clarity in markets is also what we need to do to achieve closeness in our personal relationships and a connection to our life's purpose?  It would be ironic if our most spiritual practices are what further our most material pursuits.  

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