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I know we have a lot of trading psychology books recommended in the forum.
I need sports psychology or performance enhancement books because I want to read it to improve on trading but I really want my son to read it too. I need him to understand that mind is very strong tool when it's put to good work...
I think sports psychology will relate to him better since he is in a few athletic program at school.
Can you help answer these questions from other members on NexusFi?
The trader is definitely a mental athlete. Though it probably won't matter what sports he's into, I've tried to cover decent range of possible pursuits. Here are a few possibilities to get you started:
Most of these books were written by athletes or coaches, so the material will be coming from actual practice instead of a clinical viewpoint. Both perspectives can be valuable. Hopefully that gets the ball rolling for you
Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. ~ Seneca
I wasn't going to reply, but since it got brought up...
I used to compete at archery on an international level, probably (for very short intervals) the best in the world in my class, and I don't know anybody who bothered with psychology one iota.
That doesn't necessarily mean it's not important, but I think if anybody had thought I could of got an edge by reading a book, they would have got me to read it.
I'm happy with neuroscience, but I think most psychology books are worthless mumbo jumbo. This author for example, was a Dr in philosophy, how does that make him qualified to write on psychology?
Most things which are proven to work are common sense, eat right, sleep right, shag like a tiger.
P.S. If you want to learn archery go to Korea, not Japan.
Just to elaborate my point: I played soccer for 20 years. I also played hockey, tennis and skateboarded for quite a few years. I love sports, and I love pushing my mind and body as far as they can go. However, while sports psychology is more about compartmentalization and visualization, the concept of neuroplasticity goes much deeper. It is a powerful notion that self-directed behavioral therapy actually changes the neural pathways of the brain. To me that is a profoundly different way of perceiving one's abilities. It's also the key to happiness.
By the way, I know that Dr Schwartz put out a new book last year, but I haven't read it. It seems more like a self-help book, and I don't like that kind of literature.
Make no mistake, by balancing one's thought processes and understanding how to change behavioral patterns one gets a leg up on those simply employing the tactics of forced discipline. The latter often leads to cognitive dissonance at some point. I also want to point out that I am not a Buddhist, nor do I advocate it, I am simply fascinated by their self-control. I am also not discounting the value of sports psychology (I have no formal knowledge of it), but I think that its impact is greatly enhanced if one views it from the neuroplastic point of view. Alright, I'll step down from my soap box now...
Now, I'm struggling, not necessarily there yet. But I'll share my view after looking at a lot of books and methods.
Trading is a bit like sports but not really enough. Unless you can find a sport where you sit for a long time waiting for a chance to fire (starts to sound like hunting) but once you fire you have to carefully and delicately manage your prey until you win or it gore's you (sounds more like spearfishing for sharks and not being allowed to kill them for 10 minutes). There are no books on this.
Then, in the trading psych books there are one trick ponies and a bunch of people who grab stuff like NLP that's regarded as discredited by real psychologists and those who test things to see if they work. And there's a tendency to use terms like Neuroplasticity as though there is a new solution (really all it means is that we can learn new patterns, the brain will adopt new habits if repeated and strengthened) although the guy mentioned above has done excellent work on OCD but the Amazon reviews are right about his science.
So, after reading huge amounts and trying a lot of things what works?
Well, cognitive behavioural work does get the scientific tick, and recently so has work using mindfulness to reduce the damaging effect of thought/feeling/emotion clusters in people under stress and allow them to do what's important rather than what their impulses and fears are driving. So my recommendation would be:
- watch Dr Gary Dayton's fear video on the site as its a good introduction to ACT, a combination of mindfulness and cognitive work
- read and work hard on "The Happiness Trap" by Russ Harris which gives ACT a lot more depth and will give you some exercises to build your skills for trading. These really help when you're thoughts are pulling you to exit early or stay too long in a trade, or you're anxious and don't quite want to pull the trigger.
- read and work hard on "The Mental Game of Poker" by Jared Tendler. Poker is the sport closest to trading and Jared has an enviable reputation for helping Poker players step up a level or three using Cognitive techniques. His stuff maps well to trading and combines well with ACT.
- Steenbarger's stuff is good to read but I personally found it hard to turn into fixes for my trading problems.
Both of the recommended books are cheap for your kindle (or free kindle software) and the webinar will cost you $50 for the "elite" membership. I didn't have the webinar when I started though, its just interesting to see that Dr Gary had read the ACT book and was using it before me. I'm hoping that means it's as effective as it seems to be so far.
I've been beavering away at this stuff for a long while so I've seen some snake oil and some pretensions of superior psych. But I've been working on these two since February and seem to be nailing some of my old problems. It remains to be seen if I can truly turn the corner but I'd bet on this recommendation against most of the other things you can try. Check out my journal over the next few months if you want to find out if it does work.
