Preface xiii Acknowledgments xvii Introduction 1 Chapter 1 Change: The Process and the Practice 3 Lesson 1: Draw on Emotion to Become a Change Agent 4 Lesson 2: Psychological Visibility and Your Relationship with Your Trading Coach 7 Lesson 3: Make Friends with Your Weakness 9 Lesson 4: Change Your Environment, Change Yourself 11 Lesson 5: Transform Emotion by Trace-Formation 14 Lesson 6: Find the Right Mirrors 17 Lesson 7: Change Our Focus 20 Lesson 8: Create Scripts for Life Change 23 Lesson 9: How to Build Your Self-Confidence 25 Lesson 10: Five Best Practices for Effecting and Sustaining Change 29 Resources 32 Chapter 2 Stress and Distress: Creative Coping for Traders 33 Lesson 11: Understanding Stress 33 Lesson 12: Antidotes for Toxic Trading Assumptions 37 Lesson 13: What Causes the Distress That Interferes with Trading Decisions? 40 Lesson 14: Keep a Psychological Journal 43 Lesson 15: Pressing: When You Try Too Hard to Make Money 45 Lesson 16: When You''re Ready to Hang It Up 48 Lesson 17: What to Do When Fear Takes Over 51 Lesson 18: Performance Anxiety: The Most Common Trading Problem 54 Lesson 19: Square Pegs and Round Holes 58 Lesson 20: Volatility of Markets and Volatility of Mood 61 Resources 64 Chapter 3 Psychological Well-Being: Enhancing Trading Experience 67 Lesson 21: The Importance of Feeling Good 67 Lesson 22: Build Your Happiness 71 Lesson 23: Get into the Zone 73 Lesson 24: Trade with Energy 77 Lesson 25: Intention and Greatness: Exercise the Brain through Play 79 Lesson 26: Cultivate the Quiet Mind 83 Lesson 27: Build Emotional Resilience 86 Lesson 28: Integrity and Doing the Right Thing 89 Lesson 29: Maximize Confidence and Stay with Your Trades 91 Lesson 30: Coping--Turn Stress into Well-Being 95 Resources 97 Chapter 4 Steps toward Self-Improvement: The Coaching Process 99 Lesson 31: Self-Monitor by Keeping a Trading Journal 99 Lesson 32: Recognize Your Patterns 103 Lesson 33: Establish Costs and Benefits to Patterns 106 Lesson 34: Set Effective Goals 109 Lesson 35: Build on Your Best: Maintain a Solution Focus 111 Lesson 36: Disrupt Old Problem Patterns 114 Lesson 37: Build Your Consistency by Becoming Rule-Governed 118 Lesson 38: Relapse and Repetition 121 Lesson 39: Create a Safe Environment for Change 123 Lesson 40: Use Imagery to Advance the Change Process 126 Resources 130 Chapter 5 Breaking Old Patterns: Psychodynamic Frameworks for Self-Coaching 131 Lesson 41: Psychodynamics: Escape the Gravity of Past Relationships 132 Lesson 42: Crystallize Our Repetitive Patterns 135 Lesson 43: Challenge Our Defenses 138 Lesson 44: Once Again, with Feeling: Get Distance from Your Problem Patterns 141 Lesson 45: Make the Most Out of Your Coaching Relationship 144 Lesson 46: Find Positive Trading Relationships 147 Lesson 47: Tolerate Discomfort 150 Lesson 48: Master Transference 153 Lesson 49: The Power of Discrepancy 156 Lesson 50: Working Through 158 Resources 161 Chapter 6 Remapping the Mind: Cognitive Approaches to Self-Coaching 163 Lesson 51: Schemas of the Mind 164 Lesson 52: Use Feeling to Understand Your Thinking 167 Lesson 53: Learn from Your Worst Trades 170 Lesson 54: Use a Journal to Restructure Our Thinking 172 Lesson 55: Disrupt Negative Thought Patterns 176 Lesson 56: Reframe Negative Thought Patterns 179 Lesson 57: Use Intensive Guided Imagery to Change Thought Patterns 182 Lesson 58: Challenge Negative Thought Patterns with the Cognitive Journal 185 Lesson 59: Conduct Cognitive Experiments to Create Change 188 Lesson 60: Build Positive Thinking 190 Resources 193 Chapter 7 Learning New Action Patterns: Behavioral Approaches to Self-Coaching 195 Lesson 61: Understand Your Contingencies 196 Lesson 62: Identify Subtle Contingencies 199 Lesson 63: Harness the Power of Social Learning 201 Lesson 64: Shape Your Trading Behaviors 204 Lesson 65: The Conditioning of Markets 207 Lesson 66: The Power of Incompatibility 211 Lesson 67: Build on Positive Associations 214 Lesson 68: Exposure: A Powerful and Flexible Behavioral Method 217 Lesson 69: Extend Exposure Work to Build Skills 220 Lesson 70: A Behavioral Framework for Dealing with Worry 223 Resources 226 Chapter 8 Coaching Your Trading Business 227 Lesson 71: The Importance of Startup Capital 227 Lesson 72: Plan Your Trading Business 231 Lesson 73: Diversify Your Trading Business 233 Lesson 74: Track Your Trading Results 236 Lesson 75: Advanced Scorekeeping for Your Trading Business 240 Lesson 76: Track the Correlations of Your Returns 244 Lesson 77: Calibrate Your Risk and Reward 248 Lesson 78: The Importance of Execution in Trading 250 Lesson 79: Think in Themes--Generating Good Trading Ideas 254 Lesson 80: Manage the Trade 257 Resources 259 Chapter 9 Lessons from Trading Professionals: Resources and Perspectives on Self-Coaching 261 Lesson 81: Leverage Core Competencies and Cultivate Creativity 261 Lesson 82: I Alone Am Responsible 264 Lesson 83: Cultivate Self-Awareness 271 Lesson 84: Mentor Yourself for Success 275 Lesson 85: Keep Detailed Records 279 Lesson 86: Learn to Be Fallible 283 Lesson 87: The Power of Research 286 Lesson 88: Attitudes and Goals, the Building Blocks of Success 290 Lesson 89: A View from the Trading Firms 295 Lesson 90: Use Data to Improve Trading Performance 300 Resources 305 Chapter 10 Looking for the Edge: Finding Historical Patterns in Markets 307 Lesson 91: Use Historical Patterns in Trading 308 Lesson 92: Frame Good Hypotheses with the Right Data 310 Lesson 93: Excel Basics 313 Lesson 94: Visualize Your Data 317 Lesson 95: Create Your Independent and Dependent Variables 320 Lesson 96: Conduct Your Historical Investigations 324 Lesson 97: Code the Data 327 Lesson 98: Examine Context 329 Lesson 99: Filter Data 332 Lesson 100: Make Use of Your Findings 334 Resources 336 Conclusion 339 Lesson 101: Find Your Path 339 For More on Self-Coaching 341 About the Author 343 Index 345.