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Someone invented the telephone,
And interrupted a nation's slumbers,
Ringing wrong but similar numbers…
from "Look What You Did, Christopher" by Ogden Nash
It was seconds after I picked up the phone and spoke in a completely alert and wide-awake voice, "Dr. Dorn. How may I help you?" that I realized it was 2:15 a.m. After years of practicing psychiatry, I became totally accustomed to picking up the phone at all hours of the day and night, I was right in pitch and, as the British say, "at the ready."
But I am now a trading coach, not a practicing psychiatrist, so the only time the phone would ring at that hour would be if someone were in trouble or bearing the worst possible news. The telephone is not my friend, and I always turn it off when I am trading.
The person on the other end of the line was someone from another country whom I had coached for about three sessions before he decided he was doing "just fine on my own and I don't want to offend you, Dr. Janice, but I don't need you or coaching, and I know more than you do about stochastics." So why was he calling me in the early hours of my morning? Granted, in his time zone, it was not 2:15 a.m.; it was earlier in the evening, and he was alone in his home. His girlfriend had taken their child to the ocean for the week, and he was left to his own devices. Said devices included trading and—on the day in question—giving back all the profits he had made over the past five trading days. So, what does a person do when he finds himself alone and forced to explain to his girlfriend that he just lost their vacation money? Yes, he lost their vacation money. He was living from trade to trade, and she was spending it every bit as quickly as he was making it.
He began softly and slowly telling me that he was "not smart enough to do this." I immediately sat up in bed, reached for the water on my bedstand and just listened to what I clearly expected to hear. I had heard this progression so many times in the past years. It starts slowly and then—like a Wagnerian opera accelerating into crescendo—turns into something akin to a raging Tower of Babel. I tried to intercept a few times, but I could not stop the deluge. There were no apologies for waking me in the middle of the night. There was no thought that I might be sleeping next to someone who would be offended by a call at that hour from a hysterical male. For this trader, there was only that moment and the moments that followed.
Starting with his not being smart enough to be a trader, he began to blame everything and everyone—including me. He blamed me for not insisting that he keep coaching with me when he wanted to leave. He blamed me for the fact that he had stopped the coaching. He blamed the Fed for manipulating the markets, the gold "cartel" for artificially manipulating the gold price, two of the paid newsletters he reads for disagreeing with each other, and his broker for giving him "bad fills." With some difficulty, I managed to get in a few words. I told him that trading success had much less to do with being smart than with being humble, disciplined and patient. He didn't want to hear that at all. In fact, it appeared to make him more agitated, so I just let him rant and rage. Finally, after about twenty minutes of blaming everything and everyone, he started sobbing. He said that it was all his fault and his responsibility and that he was so angry at himself and so full of self-hatred that he couldn't live with himself anymore.
Now we were getting somewhere! After the raging, he was ready to settle down and come to grips with the reality that he was absolutely and totally responsible for his decisions. As a result of being responsible and accepting the accountability for what had happened to him, he made a giant leap into the realm of his own truth. I sensed that he was sincere and that he actually, finally "got" the concept of personal responsibility. Now, the work with him could really begin, because he was able to break down the walls that he had built around him to shield him from the truth within himself. The truth within him was the tool we would use to show him that he is stronger than any and all of his fears. His willingness to become a real human being with human failings was the first step on his path to being a successful trader. There would be no more pretending, no more gunslinging, no more artifice.
We made an appointment to resume the coaching next week. It was 3:10 a.m. when we said goodnight to each other, and I clicked off the telephone and tried to go back to sleep.
That was a fabulous phone call, and we did great coaching work. The telephone is still my enemy, but I do know that it is often our enemies that are our greatest teachers.
Telephone, n. An invention of the devil which abrogates some of the advantages of making a disagreeable person keep his distance…from "The Devil's Dictionary" by Ambrose Bierce
Until Next Time,
Good Trading and Brain On!
Janice Dorn, M.D., Ph.D.
janice@thetradingdoctor.com
P.S.—If you need your weekly dose of "Stress and How to Manage It," I did two podcasts this week, including one where I gave my "up-close and personal" recipe for stress reduction. (Sign up for my podcasts.)
P.P.S.—Take a sneak peek at my new book, Personal Responsibility: The Power of You, published in January, 2008, at www.personalresponsibilitybook.com.
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