Yesterday we talked about the first of the three areas in which traders struggle (has to do with confusion about trading strategies)

You can read that here

Today, I want to share the results of the survey with you and speaking specifically to the second of the three areas of struggle:

The problem:  self-doubt

Take Marty for example…

He came to me asking for help and the main he said is one I’ve heard dozens if not hundreds of times over the years:

Marty had been trading for just over 6 years and he’d only had a few profitable months throughout the that whole time

He’d gone through spells where he watched countless webinars pitching old, recycled strategies as new-fangled, “just cracked the code” systems

He’d spent well over $20,000 on the different ‘systems’, but none of them worked as expected and the few that did produce at first didn’t continue for long

Marty got book after book on trading psychology and bought different courses on self-discipline, thinking that those would do the trick

He’d tried and failed with so many of the traditional solutions, he was left questioning himself and his ability to ever make it work

When I asked him what was the main thing he wanted to accomplish with the coaching, he simply said

I asked him to rate where his confidence was on a scale from 1-10

His response:  “I’m at a 2”

I told him that traders come to me all the time looking for help, and I hear it all the time how they blame themselves for things not working

I let him know that it wasn’t his fault, and that there’s nothing wrong with him.

There’s so much misinformation and just plain crap being sold in the trading space, that it’s easy for good, sincere people to get caught up in all the B.S.

We went through the normal questions to assess where his situation

He was a 43-year old, married professional with 2 kids

He was reasonably successful in his life, had the normal challenges with his parents growing up, but nothing horrific and no “Mommy-Daddy” issues that seemed to be interfering with his trading

His trading experience was fairly standard too

So we looked at his trading system, just to see what he’d been using

And what we found was significant

The strategy his system was based on was reasonable and sounded like it should work okay

But his system itself had serious functional issues – I see this all the time

We took a look at some of the other “systems” he’d tried unsuccessfully

…same thing:  good strategy, lousy system

It seems like everyone just assumes that just because the strategy sounds good that whatever they’re working with is a good SYSTEM

So here’s Marty, been beating himself up all this time, thinking he was the problem when he was actually fine all along

The problem was that no one ever taught Marty how to tell if a system is actually a good system, how to evaluate it PROPERLY, and if there are issues, how to fix them

Just learning how to review a trading system and see what problems there are brought Marty a huge relief – and he was able to let up on himself a LOT

So we took the system he liked best and fixed the issues with it

Then I showed him the right was to test it and evaluate it, which he did over the next few days

I asked him where is confidence was now and his answer was “I’m at a 9!”

Now, knowing that he had a solid PROPER system in his hands, he was ready to go to the markets again

About 3 weeks after we first connected, Marty was no longer frustrated, beating himself up and NOT making money.  He was profitable and back to actually enjoying his trading

You see, what I’ve learned in my years of coaching traders, is that it seems like 99% of the time, the problem is NOT that you’ve got personal or psychological issues

The main thing most traders struggle with is ‘lack of training’ issues

You’re trying to do a job for which you’ve NOT been properly trained or prepared

No wonder it’s rough, success is NOT common, it’s stressful and almost impossible for it NOT to be emotional

But when you get the proper training, so you know what you’re doing and you have the skill sets, tools and processes to BE a self-sufficient trader, you just go do your thing, knowing that you’re okay

Now Marty spends his time experimenting with new ideas and building his portfolio of systems that work, so he can trade any market mood or condition and do so with confidence

Tomorrow, I’ll share the third area in which traders struggle, so make sure to check your inbox!

Cheers

Brian McAboy
Consistency Expert