BRETT STEENBARGER'S TRADING PSYCHOLOGY RESOURCE CENTER

Below are resources to help traders become their own trading coaches, improve their trading processes, and develop a positive work-life balance.  All the TraderFeed posts also contain links to valuable resources and perspectives.  

RADICAL RENEWAL - Free blog book on trading, psychology, spirituality, and leading a fulfilling life

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The Three Minute Trading Coach Videos

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Forbes Articles:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brettsteenbarger/
  

My coaching work applies evidence-based psychological techniques (see my background and my book on the topic) to the improvement of productivity, quality of life, teamwork, leadership, hiring best practices, and creativity/idea generation.  An important part of the "solution-focused" approach that I write about is that we can often best grow by focusing on what we do well and how we do it--and then doing more of what works for us.  The key is to know our cognitive, interpersonal, and personality strengths and leverage those in the pursuit of performance. 

FURTHER RESOURCES

*  A Creative Way to Use TraderFeed 

*  Brett Steenbarger Bio

*  Brett's Books on Trading Psychology

I wish you the best of luck in your development as a trader and in your personal evolution.  In the end, those are one and the same:  paths to becoming who we already are when we are at our best.

Brett
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Why Can't I Improve My Trading?

 

Think of how many trading courses are out there.  Consider how many trading and trading psychology books have been written.  Trading videos, tweets, interviews, podcasts:  the amount of content related to trading success is phenomenal.  And every week we get more and more and more.  Traders I hear from read books, watch videos, take courses--and they wonder, "Why can't I improve my trading?"

To address this question, I'll offer an analogy:

I could write chapters on how to pack, wear, and deploy a parachute.  I could produce videos on proper parachute maintenance and use.  I could teach a parachute course.  Now suppose you consumed all of the content I created on how to master the parachute and then you jumped out of a helicopter with your parachute.

How would you fare?

Of course, in the military, you learn to properly pack a parachute by packing parachutes and getting first hand instruction and inspection.  You learn to deploy a parachute by being tied to a line from a height and then dropping:  first at relatively low heights, then at higher heights.  You deploy the parachute again and again during real drops that are completely safe before you tackle riskier jumps.

The reason for this is that learning is state-dependent.  We are most likely to recall information and enact skills when we are in the state that we were in during our learning.  If we learn parachuting skills when we are calm and collected in a classroom, we're unlikely to recruit those skills when we're making a leap and the adrenaline is flowing.

Traders typically learn trading techniques and get psychological coaching when they are very far from the heat of battle.  Everything they learn flies out the window when markets are moving and there's real risk and reward every moment.  

We can't learn to drive racecars by watching videos, reading books, or absorbing tweets.

We can't learn combat skills in wartime by staying safe and peaceful in a classroom.  We can't master our upheavals of trading psychology when we're quiet and comfortable outside of market hours.

The best trading education and trading psychology is processed in real-time, in the act of trading.  We learn best by acquiring and practicing skills when we're in the mental, emotional, and physical states of real performance.  Our best teacher is realistic, progressive simulation.

For trading psychology, this is a game-changing insight.  More to come--

Further Reading:

Using Your Body to Program Your Mind

Overcoming the Triggers to Poor Trading

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Should I Join a Prop Trading Firm or Trading Community?

 

In recent weeks, I've had a number of traders reach out to me, asking about joining proprietary (prop) trading firms or joining trading communities.  Here is the essence of my response:

*  There is value in learning trading and developing trading skills and experience when you can learn from the experiences of others.  The best trading firms that I work with operate with team structures where there is a commitment to help each other and learn from each other.  Having trading partners can increase our accountability, and it can provide us with multiple role models.  Simply being online with other traders is not team trading.  Go where traders are committed to one another.

*  The best trading organizations only succeed and make money if their traders succeed and make money.  When I began my work in Chicago, the best prop firms covered basic overhead with desk fees and passed along member firm commission rates to traders.  Those firms shared profits with successful traders.  They did not succeed if traders were not profitable.  They invested in the best trading technology, because that would make the traders--and the firm--successful.     

*  You should be encouraged to make money, not simply to trade.  Other prop firms in Chicago operated as arcades, where traders traded their own capital, kept most of their profits, and paid fees for access to equipment and technology.  Some charged high commissions and made the bulk of their money by getting traders to place lots of trades.  When traders pulled back their risk taking due to uncertainty, this became a problem for management.  The interests of the firm and the traders did not always align.

*  Beware firms selling hope as their main product.  Some prop firms are not really prop firms at all, as they promise access to capital based upon tryouts that traders pay for.  The conditions of the tryouts are quite challenging, and it's not unusual for aspiring traders to engage in multiple tryouts.  Often, the interests of some of these firms are in selling tryouts, not in funding and growing successful traders.  Is there real training, real performance feedback, and real teamwork among participants?  Does the firm's growth depend upon the success of those who pass the tryouts?

*  Seek interactivity.  Online trading communities often offer education and coaching as well as sharing among community members.  This can greatly broaden the learning of developing traders.  The key question in evaluating online trading communities is the degree to which members actually form virtual teams and make teamwork a daily part of their trading processes.  If the communities succeed mostly by selling memberships and services, they cannot foster the mutual learning and development essential to our learning curves.

A quick anecdote:  Tomorrow, I'll be joining Jeff Holden from SMB Capital to help traders make use of a new technology that tracks the expected value of trades in real time.  This can be of tremendous value in sizing positions appropriately and in helping traders grow their risk-taking in responsible ways.  SMB is training the traders to take better risk/reward trades and they are investing in the technology so that the firm will succeed as the traders become more successful. 

Be selective:  The right firms and communities treat you as an investment, not as a trade--

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