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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Cowards die many times before their deaths. The valiant never taste of death but once…William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar (II, ii, 32-37)
In Walking the Talk: Part 1, I presented to you the case of a woman who had spent over 8,000 hours watching the soybean markets without placing a single trade. Repeated interaction with her over the course of two weeks has been compelling and revealing. There are so many lessons here for the subscribers of www.trending123.com, and for everyone else who wants to trade or who is trading in these markets.
I learned a great deal from this interaction, and would like to share with you one major concept. The backdrop of this story is that the woman would not send me her trading plan or system. She feared that I would break her confidentiality and share it with many people. After all, her system was better than any out there because "it gives profitable trades over 90% of the time." Why would she want to share it with me or anyone else? In her words, "I developed and perfected it, and no one has a right to see it or use it but me."
When I asked her why she had contacted me, she told me that she wanted validation. She wanted someone with coaching experience to tell her what a great job she had done and to congratulate her on the thousands of hours of effort she had put into her trading plan. I told her that it was commendable for someone to spend so many hours developing a trading system, but that I was unable to give her any feedback on its quality since I had not seen the system and there were no recorded trades.
Slowly, over the course of the week, I felt some barriers coming down. She seemed to be opening up to me in a different way, and her emails became less agitated and confrontational. In fact, they took on a more gentle and almost-pleading aspect. It became clear to me that, underneath the bravado and hype, this woman was truly suffering. She was so frozen by fear and anger that she could not find the courage to place one single trade into the markets. What she wanted from me was not confirmation or analysis of her trading system. What she wanted was courage. She wanted me to take away the multilayered shell of fear that had encapsulated her. She wanted me to "fix" her so she would be able to use her system to make money in the market. It took nearly two weeks to get to the point where she actually said, "I am terrified. I am frozen. Please help me."
This is a story about courage. We see it played out over and over again in our lives and the lives of those around us. It may not always manifest the way it did with this woman, but every person reading this has gone through periods in life when he or she did not have the courage to move beyond limitations. Change is the only constant in our lives, and change is what often frightens us the most. It is so much easier to stay "stuck" in what we are doing or not doing, rather than to face the reality that nothing moves until we move it.
Throughout the history of our culture, there are thousands of stories of people who overcame great obstacles to push through to that next level. Some of the most outstanding artists, musicians, designers, chefs and athletes were not always great. They became great by having the determination to be so. They practiced, took time off, regrouped, continued to study and went back to practicing again. In many cases, they were rejected multiple times before they finally rose to the occasion and made it to the pinnacle.
In 1997, Tiger Woods won the Masters Golf Tournament, setting records that no one had believed possible. Then, he had the courage to do something that no one expected. He wanted to be a better golfer–to push himself to even higher levels of achievement–and he decided to change his swing. It took 18 months of struggle for one of the greatest athletes in the world to step back and completely change his golf swing! He had the courage to do this, and he did it quietly and without fanfare. Most people who have attained greatness in life suffered setbacks of enormous proportions. For them, it was not about falling down and staying down. It was about falling down again and again and getting up each time.
In trading and in life, success takes courage. It is the courage of the individual to triumph over self. It is the courage to keep pushing forward, even if it means taking that first baby step of clicking the mouse and making a small trade. It is the courage to truly believe that life is never about what happens to you. Rather, life is what you do with what happens to you. If you have a dream and a passion to succeed, you can and you will make it. It is up to you to push through and never rest on your laurels. It is up to you to be the change that you want for yourself. It is up to you to embrace this change and use it to propel you to higher levels of excellence. In the end, it is always about the journey.
All serious daring starts from within…Harriet Beecher Stowe
Until Next Time,
Good Trading and Brain On!
Janice Dorn, M.D., Ph.D.
janice@thetradingdoctor.com
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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