I have traded since 2001. Since that time I have come to understand that the most difficult thing to understand about trader development is the skills traders need to develop first have, on the face of it, nothing to do with trading.
It all comes down to one fundamental thing, which traders seem unable to grasp:
When you develop as a person you can’t help but develop as a trader.
If you really understood this statement, your trading difficulties would, if not disappear completely, certainly diminish to a large degree.
The reality is very different though for most traders and investors. Few make consistent returns and most work too hard, simply because they are working on the wrong things.
First, there is the assumption that trading and investing is a complicated business that needs to be studied from many different angles in order to be understood.
The belief that discipline and hours spent over refining your trading system will eventually guarantee trading success is deeply imbedded in the financial industry and in life at large.
Countless trading seminars out there will either tell you that the profession is dead easy, and you can make millions without going through a learning curve, or they teach you complex system which might work well for them, but may not work so well for your trading personality.
Traders are living a reality which directly contravenes universal law.
This is one of the main culprits for most trading difficulties, yet nobody tells you that. Instead your need to control everything is unwittingly made worse as it is expanded upon with many a trading system and tutorial. Your mind has been convinced that it needs to be compressed into a straightjacket of strict rules which must be abided at all times to make you a successful trader.
While we are gradually waking up to the fact that there is more to trading than just following a system, most trader development focuses on the mechanical aspects of winning and losing, while either ignoring or paying way too little attention to the one thing that makes or breaks trading success. That one thing of course is:
Your relationship with the world around you.
Much maligned, misunderstood, and neglected, you are the only one that can make trading success real. In other words you are the universal source of everything, including your trading.
Your ignorance about the essence of your manifestation powers leads to four issues, seldom addressed at all in trader coaching, which will stop lasting trading success dead in its tracks. These are:
1) The need to control;
2) A focus on your external trading reality versus the internal trading reality from a quantum perspective and neuro science;
3) The need to compete for knowledge and power results in ignorance of how universal laws really work, and;
4) The need to chase in order to achieve, again in total ignorance of the true workings of universal law.
Trader development focuses on teaching.
Developing a trading strategy teaches risk management, understanding technical analysis, learning back testing, algorithms, etc., and only then on the basics of trading psychology, often without the knowledge of the deeper truths of existence.
Scraping around the surface, will not significantly change trading results.
Over the years, I have worked with many professional traders, all of whom understood what it takes to become and remain successful. They knew what was required of them as floor traders and as traders working in hedge funds. Yet it took some of these guys 30 years to realize their development as a person would be the one thing that would make success easier, bring more constant results, and ultimately provide the harmony and flow, much talked about in trading, yet missing from most trader’s lives.
Harmony and flow are lacking in our lives, are not fully understood, and even less integrated into our daily lives.
This is the big issue. Consequently everything else becomes a challenge. Life does not flow in a straight line. A look around the world today emphasizes this observation wherever we care to look.
Trader development must address the core facets of life before addressing trading structures. The fastest, easiest, and most direct path to any kind of success is by going to the core.
“The thing that most people forget, while dreamily looking off into the horizon for the ship of their dreams, is that such ships never sail in, but are actually built beneath their very feet.” (TUT)
Making traders understand that success emanates as an invisible field of energy within them, which can be tapped into at will at any time, is a foundational piece of learning. In fact, in my book it is so foundational that it ought to be taught at school. History of trading via back testing, just as general history of the human species might be of intellectual interest, alas it has no bearing on future results.
Remember the disclaimer: “Past results are no guarantee for future returns.”
An essential universal truth is stated here, not just a cop out for the publishers of trading signal services.
Taking off the veils if illusion and daring to look behind the curtain to see the props of the theatre is disturbing.
It destroys the illusions, which, while tough on us, are also our perceived safety nets. Unless traders and investors learn that through their continuous observations of the world through the lens of their conditioned brains, they are creating every inch of their trading and investment reality. Irrespective of what the markets are trading, they will be doomed to fail sooner or later.
This is so because the mind simply cannot keep up with the pressure of competing, making good, amending and re-inventing the wheel all the time in a bid to control the outcome of every trading situation. The resulting exhaustion sooner or later leads to resignation, overwhelm and the deeply painful awakening that underneath all that pain and hard work there must be something else, but what?
If the universe were against you, the universe would not be able to exist.
The idea that the universe is operating against humans is absurd, yet we are continuously acting as if it were true. Have you ever considered this paradox in all its consequences?
The complex simplicity of life, as I already said, is hard to grasp. Our convoluted minds, not the universe, instil complexity into our tasks – too much ego to let go. The fear that everything you had been taught might be wrong at best delays success and at worst, stops you from succeeding.
Unlearning everything you have been taught in order to be free to “go direct” to the realm of your desires is the very thing you need to do.
It is the core of good trader development and needs to be instilled in every trader way before talking about the intricacies of trading strategies.
Trader development is much more than just teaching you to trade. Effective, meaningful trader development will make you understand the essence of life, which is also the essence of you. It will teach you the essence of reality. I know, this is not for everyone, but if you are ready and willing to go deep, the rewards will be way beyond what I can describe to you in a short article; they are profound.
Serious trader development gives you support in unlearning and re-inventing your reality. It will take you by an invisible hand leading you back to your original power of creation. It will unite you and harmonize you.
True trader development, that ticks all the boxes mentioned, is immensely expansive.
Granted, the journey is not a one day wonder, but it is an immensely liberating and expansive journey where trading success and success in life must follow, as fear begins to fade away, making room for more courageous and focused trading decisions based on truth, instead of conditioned perception. It cannot be any different it is universal law.
In order to become successful, you must first and foremost be successful and this means letting go of the old person whose world view has been created from perceptions of lack, hardship, and unexpected turmoil.
The universe makes no mistakes. It works in perfect order. When you begin seeing this for yourself, all your trading fears will fade into the background as you simply re-focus on co-creating with the cosmos, not just in your trading or investing.
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For more about Mercedes Oestermann van Essen, please click here.
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