© Ed Seykota, 2003 - 2007 ... Write for permission to reprint.

Frequently Asked Questions

Associates Program  ...  Chart Server  ...  Contact Us

Answers

Ed,

On Tuesday, I reread the section on your website titled TTP – The Trading Tribe Process. On Tuesday evening, I dream two dreams in detail. I don’t remember the last time I have such vivid dreams. Actually, I don’t remember the last time I simply dream.

In the first dream, I sense that I am about 16 years old. I go with my girlfriend to visit a high school friend but he isn’t home. His girlfriend is home. While his girlfriend is out of the kitchen, I steal a pair of diamond stud earrings that belong to my friend out of a wood box that sits on the kitchen table. I steal the earrings and I plan to give them to my girlfriend. My girlfriend doesn’t see me steal the earrings. As my girlfriend and I leave, I look into the eyes of my friend’s girlfriend and I feel bad for stealing the earrings. I do not give the earrings back and my girlfriend and I leave the house.

After I wake up I note the following:

The dream takes place in the house where my Uncle currently lives. My Grandmother (from the other side of my family) lives in the house prior to my Uncle. My Grandmother passes away when I am about 13 years old. My Uncle moves in about 6 months after my Grandmother passes away. In the dream, neither my Grandmother nor my Uncle is present. In the dream, the person who lives in the house is my high school friend. The house is about an hour drive from where we go to school. To my knowledge, my friend never goes to this house.

The last time I speak with my friend is about 7 years ago. He sends me an engagement announcement about 6 months ago. His girlfriend in the dream is not the girl he is in a relationship with currently. His girlfriend in the dream is a girl he dates in high school.

My girlfriend in the dream is currently my wife. I meet my wife in college. I don’t know her in high school.


In the second dream, I sense that I am about 16 years old and I walk with a friend from high school (a different friend from the first dream) down the street in a bad section of town. There are lots of people on the street. I see rides and realize a festival is taking place. My friend has a problem with a younger kid and he is looking for the kid. We are walking to the kid’s house. My friend wants to fight the kid. I sense as we get closer to the house the people on the street know what is going on. I try to tell my friend that the kid is not worth it and we should just go have fun. My friend continues on his way to the kid’s house. My friend and the kid meet on the street and start to argue. My friend is quite a bit taller than the kid. As they start to shove each other, I walk away and avoid the confrontation. The kid has a friend to help him out and they start to beat up my friend. I notice the two on one and rush over to my friend who is lying on the ground. As I rush over, the two kids run onto a full school bus. My friend and I get on the bus to look for the kids. I go to the back of the bus and begin to walk forward as my friend steps on. He notices the one kid in about the third row and starts to beat him pretty viscously. I look around to see if I can see the other kid trying to get to his friend to help. I notice the other kid as he starts to go under the seats of the bus to try and move forward to help his friend. I move quick to trap the kid on the floor against the leg of the seat and begin to beat him up.

After I wake up I note the following:

I don’t recognize the surroundings where the dream takes place.

I don’t know the problem my friend has with the kid.

What might be the information or experiences that Fred is trying to relay to me through the dreams?

What might I consider doing to help me progress on the path to Right Livelihood?

Thank you,

sp-asp/_/pd--10100758/Pandoras_Box.htm

I consulted with family and friends and they say: follow your heart and intuition. Heart and "intuition" feel like moving back home. I am not sure they are smart though. It sucks.

This never-ending process of reversals re-invigorates the portfolio with an entirely new set of stocks the next time around, as the stocks / sectors that tend to lead the market on the next uptrend are usually not the same as those that led the previous one. On occasion when I switch from long to short, I often find that I am shorting some of the same stocks that I previously held in the prior uptrend.

Of course, the downside of this methodology is that if the signal to reverse is wrong, I not only run the risk of losing any open-trade profits that I might have accumulated, I could also lose further ground as I head off in the “wrong” direction.

With respect to your comment about start-date dependency, I ran a series of rolling 12-month simulations over the past approximately 10 years. The results again agree with your points. The variations in the 12 month performance results from best to worst are substantial and overall show a marked dependency on start-date.

This dependency appears to be directly correlated to the size of drawdown of the market (S&P 500) during the same 12 month test periods. I notice that when the market has a significant drawdown (the largest I saw was the period from Jul 2001– Jul 2002) AND experiences at some point during the 12 month test period a large percentage drop below its beginning price level, my reversal system tends to perform very well. When the market experiences relatively small drawdowns AND has little or no drop below its starting price level (such as the 12 month periods ending in Jul, Aug & Sep of 2007), my reversal system has whipsaws and underperformance.

It would seem reasonable to me to conclude after reviewing the performance and drawdown records of many of the better-recognized multi-market trend followers that my analysis is not unique and all trend followers will have the same problem with start date dependency and inconsistency. It appears to be difficult to take performance out of a non-trending market in the shorter term, especially with the plunge protection team hard at work.

Winter is coming here in [City]. Firewood is cut, split and stacked. Venison, pheasant, duck, and trout are being added to the freezer.

Thank you for your continued work and enlightenment.

ES-vomit.jpg

Ed

Four days after attending the Reno Workshop I join the Incline Village Tribe and attend my first meeting. Also at the meeting are three other workshop attendees: one is already a tribe member, another commits to membership, and the third attends as a guest before returning to his native country the following day.

Ed calls for check in and takes inventory of who's "hot," then asks if anyone wants to go to the hot seat. In the end, the three of us who are new to the meeting each takes a turn.

The first hot seat complains of a persistent pain in his left shoulder on rising each morning. He says he's pessimistic each day, expecting something bad to happen, and his expectations are usually met. The pain and pessimism seem connected. Ed asks a series of questions:

"How do you sleep at night?"
"I sleep on my back, always on my back."
"Do you sleep alone or with somebody?"
"I sleep with my girlfriend."
"Which side of you does she sleep on, your left or your right?"
"I don't sleep on my side, I only sleep on my back."
"Your girlfriend, which side of the bed does she sleep on?"

At this point Hot Seat pantomimes the sleeping arrangement but his body has a hard time remembering who sleeps where. After changing his mind a couple of times, he says Girlfriend sleeps to his right. Ed asks Hot Seat which side of the bed he gets out of every morning.

"The right side."
"So you crawl over the top of your girlfriend on the right side to get up every morning?"
"No, no, she sleeps on my left."
"On the side where you complain of having a pain."

Now Hot Seat begins to manifest his form and the rest of the tribe joins Ed in providing relentless validation. Ed continues to ask about the relationship and we learn that Hot Seat is assertive with his girlfriend in the morning hours, reserving tenderness for the evenings. Ed asks Hot Seat to imagine reversing the sequence, expressing tenderness in the morning, assertiveness in the evening, so that the shoulder pain only comes at night, leaving him pain free during the day.

At first Hot Seat resists this scenario, but as he continues with his form, he becomes more relaxed in his body as he imagines tender AM. moments with Girlfriend. After about an hour in the hot seat he says he feels good about the experience and, "we'll see" if the morning pain persists. He promises a report at the next tribe meeting.

Ed calls for check-out of this round then we take five.

I go to the hot seat next. I start to explain that I feel no urgent issues, that I just want to start learning the process of getting in touch with feelings. My hands help my voice project the words and the tribe immediately picks up on this and relentlessly encourages me to get into my form. I'm not really done talking yet so I mumble something and the tribe immediately shouts encouragement to keep mumbling. Conscious Mind decides, "This must be what you came here for," so I let go and get into the form. At first it feels contrived and foolish and I hold back a little, but the tribe cheers me on till CM is convinced that this is a safe place to play the fool and I begin to go with the flow. I've still got the Conscious Mind / Feelings dialectic going, but soon I'm expressing body movement without inhibition, following new forms that the tribe notices before I do, and it feels good to feel good.

Fifteen minutes into the process, well shy of First Hot Seat's hour-plus, I sense that no Ahas are pending and bring things to a halt. I open my eyes and announce, "It's a good beginning." The next day I enjoy driving 600 miles through the Nevada desert, (really, I LOVE the drive), arriving at my destination with no fatigue, no pain, no problems.

Hot Seat #3 starts his session with a description of his issue, which, frankly, I don't recall at this writing. However, we are all captivated by the unusual breadth of facial expression Hot Seat displays, and with the tribe's relentless validation, he really gets into making faces. Ed verbalizes what he "reads" on this tableau, and Hot Seat takes each observation and explores it more fully, by exaggerating each face, and by exploring his face and head with his hands and fingers. Twice he describes his process as "ridiculous" and "bizarre." Soon Hot Seat has his entire hand inside his mouth, sensually massaging the left side of his jaw. This goes on for a minute or two. After extracting his hand from his mouth, Hot Seat tells us that his dentist believes his cracked teeth are due to stress he habitually holds in the left side of his face.

Hot Seat again remarks upon his own bizarre behavior, then gets into another form which eventually gets him on the floor in the fetal position. Ed leads Hot Seat through a present tense description of the birthing process, replete with uterine contractions and feelings of intense pressure, perhaps even suffocation, followed by release and expulsion. Hot Seat slowly extends his body into the prone position and spends several minutes silently experiencing his delivery. When the time is right, Ed calls for a check-out of this round, then we break and one of the tribe members prepares a late night dinner of pasta and salad, and we pow-wow around the campfire.

Following dinner, Ed asks if anyone else has anything to take to the hot seat. None of the "regulars" has an issue tonight, so Ed calls for a final check-out. Afterwards, some of the tribe choose to stay over at Ed's, others visit awhile then depart.

detail.asp?PRODUCT_ID=SD80

In the middle of the movie my mother forbids me to continue watching the movie. I recall feeling helpless, unhappy and very angry. I am so angry that I hit the door of my room with much force with my foot, which leaves a mark on the door for years. I also recall the name of the movie: Rocky :-)

I also notice that after these feelings of anger I tend to be inactive and do not express or receive feelings. I notice right now that my thoughts and feelings of "not being able to do anything" in similar situations are also medicinal.

I notice a pattern, that you follow up on my few contributions to FAQ with pictures of female bottoms / bottoms & tops - either as an answer to me or shortly thereafter to another question. I wonder if somebody shows up with the intention of giving you the opportunity to continue this pattern / trend.

Kind regards,

uploaded_images/Rocky-791695.jpg

Perhaps I am not a systems trader at all.

Thank you.

search.php?fname=Kelly&lname=Scriven

Is there a difference between the smoke emitting over time or all at once that makes it more harmful (not including the damage done to homes and property)?

It seems like it is inevitable for fuel to burn in nature without anybody being able to stop the process.

nuke_tests/tumbler_snapper/

Dear Ed,

your ideas of Sat 27 are very significant to me.

I realize now that my movement of non-commitment is like: "Oh, my train is leaving. Gotta run." Exercised that yesterday and missed to make friends with a nice guy.

I plan to bring that issue to tribe (yes, plan, has to be defined).

Right now, I am more into "Fathers and Grandfathers":

As always, I get it clearer in writing it down and I am very grateful for the space and support you create in your FAQ.

product_info.php/products_id/1195

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ_qK4g6ntM

He has an open and clear mind to listen to what markets tell him. He is also willing to support his trading system to feel the feelings of fear, greedy, pride and despair.

Understanding and believing that I do not need to know why or what is driving the price of an instrument is important in my development as a trend-follower. I often review FAQ, re-read Ed's book, and do some deep-breathing. I try to be pro-active in accepting my anxiety and going with the flow.

I am working on completing the optimization for the TSP EA. I intend to finish it soon. Once I complete the TSP EA and add the TSP SR to my software, I intend to begin testing pyramiding techniques and add margin constraints.

I am happy to help other associates. I agree with Ed that helping others is a good learning opportunity for both the student and the teacher.

Thanks for your support,

articles/when_2b_agile.html

Hi Ed,

I write to you in order to share my experiences and thoughts with respect to my attendance at the I.V. tribe meeting on Thursday 25th.

The particular issue I bring to the hot seat has to do with the feeling of things and / or events not happening at a fast enough pace for me. To be more specific, my trading account, although increasing slowly, is not increasing as fast as I would like. Also various projects that I’m involved in, again although progressing, are not progressing fast enough for me.

I mention that I seem to be taking 3 steps forward and 2 steps back whereas what I would like is to be travelling at, say, 10 steps forward and 1 (none?) steps back. In short, Faster!

You then begin to question me regarding the above.

You suggest that I might like to consider what it would be like to get things going at a faster pace and to what purpose I would even want to get things done at this speed.

Firstly, you ask me to imagine having sex at this supposed fast pace that I want my life to travel at. Would I like sex to be like this?

Well, if the truth be known, I am partial to a ‘quickie’ on the very odd occasion, but generally speaking the answer is No.

It’s far more enjoyable at a slow, steady and, dare I say, rhythmic pace.

You then ask me to consider the act of eating (perhaps at a restaurant) at this accelerated speed and I picture, in my mind’s eye, shoveling down my first course immediately followed by the second then instantly devouring my dessert and washing the whole lot down with a glass or two of wine. All 3 courses & drinks finished within the blink of an eye.

Do I like this? Well of course, once again the answer is obviously No.

In these two above examples, I don’t want to go fast. Instead I want to relax, enjoy & savor the sensations/feelings associated with each of the above activities.

So it seems that I contradict my initial desire to get things done quicker than I’m getting them done.

So which is it? Do I want things done quicker or not. It would appear that the answer is Yes to some things and No to others

So again (asking myself) which is it?

You then ask me to consider why would someone like things to move quickly?

I draw a blank, my mind is empty & I cannot think.

Uhhmm, errr, uhmmm - to get to the destination faster? - maybe?

The answer doesn’t appear satisfactory.

Once again, why do I want to get to the destination quickly.

I am now seriously blank here, my mind has stopped. I try to think but nothing comes up. I don’t feel anything when confronted with this question.

- and therein lies my answer. I DON’T FEEL ANYTHING, I want to move quickly so that I don’t have to feel anything. (BTW, this little insight only becomes clearly apparent to me the following day)

Yes, by wanting to move quickly I get to avoid feelings (i.e. intimacy, just to name one)

So what is it like to avoid feelings?

My hot seat form quickly develops itself with strange facial gestures and tensions together with my head spinning 'round and 'round and some really ‘trippy’ hand maneuvers.

The form seems to take a life of it’s own as I try to control where it is going. I am however unable to control it. So here I discover something else. My desire is to be in control (as well as NOT to have to feel)

So what’s it like to want to control things? “Feel that”, says Ed.

My form now goes really crazy and rather than describe what some may find to be an exercise in sado-masochism (i.e. my cheeks & head playing a losing game of ‘smacky-face’ with my hands) It will suffice for me to say that the form is very vigorous, energetic and fast paced.

I’m not enjoying this very much and I have the stinging rosy red open palm prints on my face to prove it.

However, I do continue with the form and in time the form slows (itself) down and amazingly I am able to enjoy it to some degree.

I 'play' with it and I notice that it feels best when I let things happen of their own accord rather than trying to control & force the issue.

Now THAT is interesting!

I also notice that the slower I move within the form the more I am able to enjoy it and the better it feels.

I will repeat that again;

The SLOWER I go, the more I FEEL it and the more I ENJOY it.

In fact, I quite like doing things slowly.


- but wait a minute, doesn’t that contradict my initial hotseat issue of wanting things to go faster?

Yes, indeed it does and therein lies my ‘aha’

(*smiling with a big cheesy grin as I finish writing that*)

Thanks again Ed & thanks again to all fellow tribe members, without whom I may not have gone as ‘full on’ as I did.

Best wishes & cheers to all,

PS. It sure is good to be home.

My trading rule set is in the attachment to this email. I believe that I can now produce variation reports from this trading rules.

My next step is to go through my notes and daily reports to obtain an enumeration of the learnings and to do a statement of trading rationale / variation report to go along with the equity curve and charts. I believe an enumeration of the learnings and statement of trading rationales to be a useful addition to the rule set.

I have not done a back-test verification of these rules. However, I now believe that with some clever programming my rule set is capable of back-test verification. I think that the difficult part of my rule set to backtest is the trend lines.

cHzjU8pxlQm61LGDgTw

sfgate/category?blogid=3&cat=128&o=20

Ed,

I commit to performing my research in the following manner.

I program a long only baseline simple Donchian box system, where I optimize the time constant for the upside breakout, trailing exit, .5% bet size, I size positions to the trailing exit (ie. risk to trailing low =.5%). All my tests are on 16 years of data on an equities database containing all current and delisted stocks to remove survivorship bias; lastly, stocks are also adjusted for all corporate actions including splits and dividends.

Parameter settings for the baseline system are 200 day upside breakouts for entry, 150 day trailing exit, .5% bet size, 50% Heat (ie. do not accept new entries if Heat > 50%).

I program each new parameter idea I have into the above simple system one at a time, optimize for MAR, and observe the results. Then I remove the new test parameter and program a new one and start the process over.

In testing my "sort by strength and buy top N% strong stocks" my observation is that restricting portfolio selection to the strongest 1% of stocks does not improve performance in a way that I initially thought. Perhaps sorting by strength alone is not sufficient to produce the results I am looking for. I now have a feeling that initial volatility may also play a big role in performance, I will now program a MAX% above a 200EMA filter to remove stocks in a blow off top pattern and report to you later.

http://csd.newcastle.edu.au/chapters/Fig1_2.png

I desire to be significant, essential to someone.

I am willing to explore my inability to define commitment. I acknowledge and know I dodge commitment my entire life.

I feel myself get to "the edge" and stop ... time after time. I fear edges.

I am looking over the edge. I wonder if jumping is better than watching ... and being left behind.

Clip: http://www.wayodd.com/cow-jumping/v/5081/

Significant Other(s)

Hi Ed,

... What is a significant other. Is it possible to have more than one?

6-1-2006-98007.asp

This is the "feel" I am talking about. Do you believe this is often the essence of successful trading?
 

wp-admin/images/layers.jpg

When I sign on I saw this link about water shortage and found it interesting:

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/many-states-facing-water-shortages/20071026204509990001

We see all the news on $90 oil as we run out of fresh water. Hmm, Don't mess with mother nature!

SDOtherWkshp.html

I stop losing money and trade less. Although not systematic in a recognizable way I have more control and am less nihilistic in all areas of life than I was.

I’m off on holiday to India and will pack The Tribing Tribe book. I hope to find someone out there I can give it to.

4.%20frantic.gif

Then I remembered those two people after the workshop, but didn't call them. They called me! How is that!

One is an old friend I lost contact with despite I enjoyed her company very much. She calls me and it turns out that there will be a meaningful exchange system-wise. She has a lot of good ideas which inspire me and perhaps I can help her with her k-nots that are blocking her to realize their right livelihood which is already defined.

The other one is an old acquaintance, who knows somebody, who trades futures and stocks. My friend isn't trading, because he has some k-nots about it, but has access to somebody who has developed a stock trading system that requires little trading efforts, but fits the trading ideas you offered at the workshop. Fortunately, this guy - the trader - lives in [City]. Planned to go there anyway :0)

I am so grateful that you developed all those processes to get some fresh ideas in the system!

OK.

I was only applying this verse to stop losses, not stop entries. Duh, how blind is that?

Motivational_Poster_Collection/Procrastination.png

Yesterday, my wheat position hits its stop after two straight down limit day and so I am out of wheat with the expected loss of $1250. I feel fine. I understand that this is part of the game and that this is a whipsaw, so I am just looking for one good trend to pay for them all. Pretty amazing to me that I don't have any feelings of resistance about being whipsawed!

You might consider implementing a system to do the looking for you.

If my system only purchases the strongest 30% of all stocks, illiquid stocks can make their way into this upper threshold.

It is amazing at the amount of time it took for me to see this happening. I feel that I went through a period of uneasiness, frustration, giving up then enlightenment. lol, emotions are wonderful.

Note: I feel that I am done with my "programming random ideas and seeing what happens" phase, and I commit to systematizing my research by cataloging every idea in readable format so I stop starting from zero every time a new idea comes up because I forgot about what worked before that idea.

I experience less reactionary anxiety and more systematic daily routine.

smileyFeelings.php

The last time I saw you was Chicago in the early eighties. I'm the airline pilot from [State] that came to that deep breathing session you put on for the investment types. I had quite an experience and I never forgot it or you.

I retired from the airline ten years ago and moved to California to be closer to my daughter and grandson. I'd like to start trading again but I'd like some help to get started.

See the Associates Program link, above.

What is your take on this issue?

Keep up the great work

Clip: http://www.allposters.com/-sp/I-Feel-A-Sin-Posters_i847054_.htm

Ed,

I had a wonderful experience at the TTP workshop, I feel quite fortunate that our paths crossed. It was a pleasure to get the opportunity to meet people that are so interested and committed to self improvement and development.

I feel that I am only beginning to scratch the surface of what is possible and what I can learn (and hopefully contribute). I already spoke with [another Tribe member] about this, and he assured me that I would be welcome, however I wanted to ask you directly. With your permission, I would be thrilled and honored to attend the Incline Village Tribe meetings.

My business partner and I are preparing to leave [City] for the winter, and we are considering Lake Tahoe specifically because we are both very interested in attending your Tribe meetings.

By the way, I am still in awe of how accurate you were in your assessment of my intimacy issues. Upon deep further reflection, I came to realize that there are very few people in my life that I am very close to. My mother is a doctor who worked very long hours when I was young, and my father owned restaurants and also worked very long hours. My father has a hard time expressing his feelings, and subsequently I was never close to him, in fact, I feel like I hardly know who he is. I am closer with my mother, but because of her career, I never really developed a close relationship with her either.

I spent the last two days reaching out to family and friends who I have grown distant from over the past few years. It felt really great to receive all of them. Thanks again for all the wonderful work you are doing.

Clip: http://www.focusonthefamilytv.com/fotftv/

Thanks so much for the experience of the workshop. I really enjoy watching you in action. I do believe that what you do is unique in this world. I came back feeling motivation and inspiration. I know I have some work to do, but I cannot say enough how much I appreciate working with you.

I think it would be a kick to see you giving a workshop in England in the springtime. I believe that you would have a very nice crowd over there and it would be fun to do.

uk/hampton-court-palace-the-gardens.htm

Wants to Know the Ideal Way

Is there an ideal way to size positions using initial margin or are you better using some other volatility measurement ?

Thank you for your help and your patience with me.

OK.

I know I screwed up long ago, but I did it out of ignorance, arrogance and fear – she’s probably doing it out of the sheer curiosity, for the attention, for fun and see is too smart not to know how I feel. I also think that since she was interested once and she decided to reject me, she now wants to know how accurate her decision was. Back then and after she made up her mind, I noticed her full attention whenever I was around as if she is hanging on to everything I say or do. I would also notice her ruminating in the distance as if she wanted me to talk to her. What was I supposed to say?

”Baby, I just don’t know how to get my life together, I’m scared and I don’t know when, how or whether I’ll make it. I am too ambitious and I despise myself struggling in delusion, me without the money or promising future, constantly hitting for the home run and becoming great before anything else can take place. There is nothing more I dream of than to be your man and somebody you can count on”. Was I supposed to tremble out of fear and cry after saying this?

I suppose the big role in this drama is my fear of basic emotional communication – I just hate fear, anger, jealousy and the rest when it comes to someone I care so much about. Everything just zaps into enormous proportions that I just can’t handle without shutting them down. I don’t want to be ridiculed for making a pathetic scene. This places me where I stand. She, in contrast, is very in touch with her own feelings and handles them fine with her great support team, her family. I don’t get to see that but I just know it.

As I write this, I feel considerable pain in my chest, I feel like ripping my lungs out. I wrote her to stop hurting me, because this is all eventually very painful. I never told her that before. Who am I pretending to be?

I write to you to share my feelings when my account equity is peak and starts to go down.

Most of positions go my way, and some might have large profits.

I feel I know something about trading and have desire to tell other people about trading and my positions.

I am proud of myself and my confidence grows so that I think I might become a fund manager.

I become greedy and think I can make more profit if I can pyramid and bet more.

Some markets already act differently than before and the entries of trades begin to be not clean-cut and begin to show losses.

The days before the account equity starts to drawdown, normally starting at the day when almost all markets of my positions sharply move against my positions, I feel very uneasy and am in a gloomy mood.

The days before the equity starts to drawdown, normally starting at the day when almost all markets of my positions sharply move against my positions, some sort of accidents happen around me.

One is on July 20, 2007 Friday I have a car accident and I get an accident report from a policeman. On July 23, 2007, Monday, all of markets move against my positions very sharply and my equity drawdown (about 18 percent) starts on that day.

Another is on October 21, 2007 Sunday two of my sons have a fighting for a book at home and my second son’s nose bridge gets hurt, and we go to an emergency room. On October 22, 2007 Monday, all of markets move against my positions very sharply again and my account is probably down about 4-5 percent on that day.

Thank you for sharing your process.

Ed,

Thank you for the Workshop. Here's a report on the Rocks process in my group:

Hot Seat's issue is Failure to Communicate, especially with family and significant others. He gives three examples.

First Example: At age fourteen Hot Seat is excited about a movie and wants to share this excitement with his father. His father blows him off with a gruff "Uh huh," and shows no more interest in the story.

Second Example: Twenty-three years ago Hot Seat tells a friend she should meet him at 2 p.m. He reiterates, "2 O'clock in the afternoon." Driving the point home a third time he says, "That's Fourteen Hundred Hours." He arrives at 2 and waits in vain for an hour. The friendship is lost.

Third Example: More recently, Hot Seat tells his fifteen year old son, "Do you know it's raining?"" His son replies, "What do you think I am, stupid?" Hot Seat is perplexed by this response.

Progress Manager ascertains that we all have an understanding of the issue then calls for volunteers to role play. I volunteer to play Father for the movie scenario but Hot Seat nixes this and selects another tribe member whose physiognomy more closely resembles that of his Father. I play the Mother.

We play the scene and the tribe member who plays Father does an excellent job ignoring 14 year old Hot Seat. At this point Mother steps in with the gift of a medicinal rock that helps Hot Seat shut off his feelings when attempts at communication fail.

We play the other two scenes with similar results, i.e., learning to shut down.

It transpires that years later, Hot Seat's technique for communicating to his father that he is 1.) married, and 2.) a father himself, is to send Father a picture of one month old Baby with a note announcing, "Here's a picture of your grandson."

Ed, this is my first exposure to the Rocks process and my recollection of the sequence of events is suspect, but the essential point is this: somewhere during the process we ask Hot Seat if he would like to replay one or more scenes with the stipulation that when Mother arrives with the medicinal rock, Hot Seat can refuse the rock, at which point a Messenger will supply Hot Seat with a neutral rock that Hot Seat, with the tribe's help, can install with different resources for dealing with ... issues. Hot Seat agrees to this.

During one of the replays with the new rock, Hot Seat has an Aha regarding the incident twenty three years earlier: the female significant other who was offered three choices to choose from, 2 p.m., 2 O'clock in the afternoon, and 1400 Hours, selects a combination and arrives at 4 p.m. in the afternoon, 2 hours late. She waits till 5 O'clock and the friendship is lost.

Process Manager calls for check-out. The tribe member to Hot Seat's left goes first, and we all give an account of our feelings. Hot Seat expresses his feelings last, and also thanks each of us for our help, releases us from our roles, and welcomes us back as friends.

Thank you for sharing your experience.

1. How can I buy your book? I live in London, U.K. What postal rate would you charge?

2. Do you see the point in having a goal for a trade? E.g. A certain price target, or a certain number of pips in FOREX? The price may not reach one's goal, but then the trade could be closed manually.

Why do I ask this question? I ask as in life, many people set goals. Many psychologists, including many NLP practitioners, say that setting goals helps one maximize their potential. One may fall short of their goal, but that is fine, as the result is probably higher than the person would have achieved without a goal in the first place. I think about whether this is useful in trading. Set a goal - aim for something - if price doesn't reach it well at least you knew the direction and outcome you wanted. What do you think?

Clip: http://www.clipartheaven.com/

Ed,

Thanks for your book. I took time to digest as much as I could, then jumped in. Now an enthusiastic new member of the [City] tribe!

Right now, I am in the process of completing my first mechanical system, a few hundred lines of code. Then to fully back-test it. I never thought it would take me this long and I’m getting increasingly impatient to start trading. Another voice (Fred?) knows I need to have enough confidence in the system or I will probably end up over-riding it and be back at square one - with even less money.

I would be interested in your views on the human side of developing confidence in a trading system, and risk management principles to maintain that confidence. Cutting losers, as you say elsewhere, is obviously one key one. Could trading more than one [complementary] system be another? Sounds intuitively appealing to me, but I also can’t help thinking of an expression I came across once, "a man with one watch knows what time it is, a man with two is never sure …"

I/41HVATNHJSL.jpg

Holding Fear and Greed as Enemies

Hello Ed,

I wish I had known about your workshop and Trading Tribe a year ago.

I have been enrolled in [Trading  Course]  for over a year and although I've learned a lot about stock fundamental & technical analysis, I've come to realize that emotion (fear of failure & greed) are my biggest enemies and if I want to be really good at trading, I need to deal with these issues.

I wish I had known about your workshop in Reno this weekend. Can you tell me when you'll be offering more workshops and what prompted you to create Trading Tribe and to help others?

?ref=patrick.net