Janice Dorn, MD, PhD
Neuropsychological Trading Coach
Janice Dorn, M.D., Ph.D., has been a full-time futures trader since 1994. Doctor Janice holds an M.D. in psychiatry and is board-certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology in general psychiatry and addiction psychiatry. She holds a Ph.D. in brain anatomy. A graduate of Coach University, she is a pioneer market psychiatrist and financial neurobehaviorist. Doctor Janice has written over 500 articles on the financial markets and coached over 600 traders worldwide. She is the Global Risk Strategist for Ingenieux Wealth Management Group, Sydney, Australia.
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The colossal misunderstanding of our time is the assumption that insight will work with people who are unmotivated to change. Communication does not depend on syntax, or eloquence, or rhetoric, or articulation, but on the emotional context in which the message is being heard. People can only hear you when they are moving toward you, and they are not likely to when your words are pursuing them. Even the choicest words lose their power when they are used to overpower. Attitudes are the real figures of speech…Edwin H. Friedman
Imagine that it’s a rainy day, and you are riding in a crowded elevator from the top of the tallest building in Seattle. Suddenly, the elevator stops moving and the people around you become frightened and uncertain of what is happening. You are a veteran elevator rider, and have been in this situation before, so you know that it is a temporary outage that will be corrected soon. Unlike the other less-experienced passengers in the elevator, you continue to face the front of the door and keep your cool. You calmly assure the others that this is just a glitch and that the elevator will begin to move again in just a few minutes. You feel good that you are facing the door and not stuck in the back of the elevator.
Suddenly, someone jabs you with an umbrella. You are upset, but pay no attention and don’t turn around. Then you feel another jab, this time near your ankle. Now, you are really getting upset and want to tell that guy to stop jamming his umbrella into your leg. You keep your cool until it happens one more time and you can’t take it anymore. You turn around to really give the guy a piece of your mind. Just as you are about to open your mouth and call him every name in the book, the elevator starts to move again. At almost the same time, you look at the guy who was jabbing you with his umbrella and realize two things:
(1) It is not an umbrella, but rather a cane, and
(2) The man is blind.
By the time you get to the lobby floor, you realize that your attitude about the entire situation had changed the instant you realized that the man was blind. You turn to him, ask if you can help him, don’t even mention that your leg is hurting from the cane jabs and do everything possible to reassure him that what happened in the elevator was nothing to be worried about and that you were so glad that you could be there to assist him.
Everything that happened in those few minutes was exactly the same except for one thing: your attitude. The minute you saw that the man was blind, you changed your attitude, and your attitude changed you. What a difference a few seconds can make in the course of our decision-making! Attitudes influence words and actions, and this is never more true than in trading.
The story of Tom and Jerry is a meal for a lifetime, and attitude is simply one of the many lessons to be learned.
In what ways did Jerry’s attitude contribute to his losses? Jerry thought that he had to be better than Tom, that he was smarter than Tom, that he should be successful and make money quickly, and that he absolutely had to sell his positions for what he paid for them because he couldn’t take a loss.
All of these attitudes exhibited by Jerry are what I call “shoulds." Think of the many times in your life when you felt so pressured by “shoulds” that your attitude changed and you got yourself into a position of stress, fear, anxiety, overload, shame, guilt , upset stomach, headache and every other manifestation of “should-ing” on yourself. Your attitude about life and trading determines your perceptions and thoughts which determine your words and actions.
In order to get into a winning attitude, it is necessary to make your perceptions of a situation as realistic as possible. Before yelling at the guy who was jabbing you with his umbrella, turn around and have a look at what is really going on. Before giving in to should-ing on yourself, step back and ask yourself what is and is not realistic. Always ask yourself one question: What is it that I think I know that I don’t know? If you apply this to your life and your trading, you will be able to approach each situation with a different attitude. You will become calmer, more rational, and less rat-brained—and most importantly, you will stop should-ing on yourself and letting others do the same to you.
When faced with a confounding and uncertain situation, particularly in the trading area, here are some guidelines to help you get the right attitude:
- Remain as calm and collected as possible
- Identify and assess the situation
- Identify your attitudes and emotions about the situation
- Face the reality of the situation
- Ask yourself, “Why am I thinking, saying or doing this?"
- Reassess your attitudes
- Draw logical conclusions
Based on all of the above, reassess and, if necessary, develop a new plan for handling the situation.
Our attitudes control our lives. Attitudes are a secret power working twenty-four hours a day, for good or bad. It is of paramount importance that we know how to harness and control this great force…Tom Blandi
Until Next Time,
Good Trading and Brain On!
Janice Dorn, M.D., Ph.D.
janice@thetradingdoctor.com
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