July 10, 2013

More Jitters

Ed,

I go to sleep after sending you my feelings about tomorrow's Tribe meeting and the fears I have.

One hour later, I now wake from a dream: I am at a ranch (!). I am trying to kill animals, many different animals are all running frantically and trying desperately to get away from me. I am with someone else who is doing the same; they start to kill a fledgling bird and I stop them, saying it would barely make a spoonful of food and so it would be a waste of a perfectly good bird life.

I wonder if I might be a bit anxious and confused about "taking it to Tribe"!!

Dear Ed,

On the eve of my third Tribe meeting I anticipate gaining more self-awareness as well as possibly release from the fears that lead me to choose Holding Back and Preemptive Living over Freefall and Spontaneous Emission.

Even writing that sentence feels like a risk to me!

My fear is that people will be hurt during the process of my emancipation.

My solace is that you will be there to midwife all of us.

Hi Ed

I enjoy reading the FAQ's and would like to share my 'aha.' Since reading your book a couple of years ago, I had noticed that I would get angry at the wrong times, but that was something that I was able to grasp very easily as I had always thought anger as a bad emotion and tried to suppress it.

Another question that I always have is 'why do I always have to prove myself?' While sitting on a traffic jam last week, I realized that because I enjoy proving myself. May be telling memories that passed through my mind that made me realize that would help. When I was in high school in India, I wanted to go to an engineering college called IIT.

Nobody in our neighborhood had gone for engineering in the past and everybody told me that I wouldn't make it, when I did I had this great feeling from proving everyone wrong.

Then in graduate school there was a problem another student had been working for more than a year and I told my adviser I can fix it and he said don't try it, I was able to fix it in a couple of months (again had that wonderful feeling) and have has so many similar experiences over the past 15 years.

I got interested in the market about four years ago with the thought that I can listen to the market and trade on what the market tells me. Have to say that I have a very poor track record so far.

What I realized that I even though I started with the intention of listening to the market, I ended up trying to prove that I can figure out and beat the market. I hope that I this realization will help me go back to my original goal of trading in the 'now' rather than trading to prove myself.

Looking forward to the TTP workshop in September.

Kind Regards

July 10, 2013

Day-Trading Addiction

Dear Ed,

I want to send an update on my progress or lack of progress. In my last e-mail “May 17, 2013 Committing to Right Livelihood” I admit to you and the extended tribe that I am not achieving right livelihood.

As of right now I feel I am still not achieving right livelihood. There is more that I want to admit; I use short term trading to medicate feelings. I do this since about 1995. From about 1995 to 2001 I trade a short term concept for stocks. I make money at it and at the peak I am up a very large %. I never felt comfortable with it and remember anger and being anxious all the time. The thing I did do is place stops in the market. I remember many mistakes, but it seems stops help the performance in my past.

Somewhere about 2001 -2002, the concept stops working, I change, I stop using stops and I blame myself for my daughter’s deep depression and many suicide attempts (seems it runs in the family). I feel that I think I am the cause my children’s problems and I am undeserving, I feel my wife shares this idea. I work on many things over the years but not this “I am undeserving idea” as I just recently realize this. Fast forward to now and I have about 10 years of short term trading losses, I blow through all the money I made from 95-01, I take on debt to pay for things so I do not have to close my medicinal account.

All the while I keep the idea alive that I made money before so I will do it again. My account gets smaller and smaller, I am afraid to look at the amount. I trade more and more to get it all back, except the more I trade the less I have and the more I need to medicate.

I am admitting: I am addict, addicted to medicating my feeling with day trading.

I use the NASDAQ 100 E-mini and the Crude Oil E-mini as my medicine of choice. I am ashamed and sick of this. I feel very odd right now almost numb, my hands are numb. I feel emptiness inside and my breath feels like it burns, it is hard to breath. I feel like I need to learn how to experience my feelings without a crutch.

The odd thing is I have a BO system that works well; it is long crude and NASDAQ and am missing out. Until now I did not really seem to care if I missed a trade because I think “I will just get even with a short term trade”. Right now I care; I do not like this feeling of missing a trade, it still feels numb and I want to do a trade to make it go away, but I will not. I am looking at both markets and I see them running even as I write this and I want to be following this trend.

I feel dizzy almost like vertigo I really feel it, I want it to stop, but I am just going to feel it and see where it leads me.

I want to check my account balance; I am afraid how devastated I will be when I see how little is left, but I am going to do it right now. Wow, it is not as low as I expected, it is down and it not pleasant, but I feel better and I feel that what I am willing to measure will improve. I just imagined myself never doing a short term trade again and trade only systems. In this vision I am relaxed, breathing calm, it feels warm and gentle, I am floating and I have a smile.

As for systems, I have one (and it is easy to follow as far as the trades go) and I am going to follow it and I am going to use my now free time to develop more systems that fit right livelihood for me.

Thank you so much for helping all of us!

Dear Ed,

Some days ago I a read the July 1 FAQ titled “Preemptive Living”. Some parts of what the contributor says connect strongly with me and I copy the following paragraph on a yellow sticky note and put it up on my laptop screen:

"I feel ready to risk letting the outcome be whatever it needs to be, based on honesty between me and whomever I am talking to. It is like making a simultaneous commitment to myself and to the other person instead of living in an imaginary and fake world that doesn't work anyway."

At the time of copying the note I think the connection with this paragraph has to do with my feelings of ensuring a clear-headed agreement that I am negotiating with my investors. I think nothing more of it. But every time I sit at the computer and see the note on the screen I feel a sense of peace and wellbeing.

The sense of being “ready to risk letting the outcome be whatever it needs to be” creates big, happy (but very scary) changes in my life – some of these are still not fully played out, but I feel that I can be of more help to the FAQ community if I share my “case study” while things are still fresh and ongoing.

The biggest development is a subtle but significant change in my relationship with my wife.

There is a drama that we engage in since the past many years and I feel completely unable to extract myself from it until now. Some days ago she is angry at me because I reach out to my ex-wife and inquire about the health of her seriously ill father. The trigger (my ex-wife) is typical of our drama as is the ugly exchange that follows – big argument, F-bombs etc.

But perhaps for the first time I manage to extricate myself from the vicious spiral and keep validating my love for my wife (although she tells me that she does not feel the validation at all). I feel that my wife has a willingness issue so I attempt to engage her. Perhaps it is useful for the FAQ community if I show an excerpt from our text message exchanges that highlight the drama (she’s travelling right now and the drama takes place electronically):

START OF EXCERPT

Me: “…let us take a step back and see whatever it is that u r feeling inside and tell me about it, rather than making an attempt to control my behavior”

Wife: “Hey, how about you also take a step back and look into you as I suggested above? This is one of so many incidents. So if u want a happy relationship, I suggest u really do that as well. I’m already looking into myself. I don’t want to control ur behavior – as I said, u can do whatever u want. The intention was never to control u but to feel validated.”

Me: “The idea of taking a step back applies to me just as much as it applies to you. And I have been validating you non-stop. Read the various e-mail and text messages and see how many times I reached out to you with genuine love. But right now you are the one who is facing the problem (about my decisions and my actions) so asking you to look inside is just a gentle reminder that you need to be willing to see the issue before we can together can do something about it.”

Wife: “I don’t know how we communicate so badly but I haven’t been feeling validated by your words at all. On the opposite I have been feeling blamed, guilty, inappropriate and misunderstood.”

Me: “Thank you for sharing that my love. I truly mean it when I say that I care about you and I love you. I am not blaming you for anything. We all feel screwed up feelings sometimes. And that’s OK. I’m here to help you dive deeper into those feelings so you may resolve your pains and enjoy life more.”

Wife: “I’d like for u to help me and help u. its not all me, so when u keep on saying that it is just not nice no matter how u say it”

Me: “OK”

Wife: “Thanks. I’m leaving for a meeting now.”

Me: “Have a good meeting”

Wife: “You are so cold, my God. Thanks very much”

Me: “I’m sorry baby. I don’t mean to sound cold. But I’m scared of going back to our “normal” relationship of ups and downs without any resolution. So here’s a big hug to break the ice xoxoxox.”

Wife: “Thanks. Well we can start by both looking into ourselves. We don’t need to go anywhere if either of us prefer otherwise. I’m looking into me and will let u know what I find. But I also want an answer from your side. your reasons for calling your ex-wife have nothing to do with humanity because each time it’s a diff stupid thing that u make me feel uncomfortable [with regards to what] concerns your ex-wife; and if you have a hang up from ur past of any sort then I would like to know. U look into that too, and be honest to u and me, and we will figure things out. Big hug to u too.”

END OF EXCERPT

There are so many hooks in the last little paragraph for me to perpetuate the drama. In the past I take such bait and we always spiral downwards and the conflict grows stronger. Today it ends somewhat differently. Below I list the drama-hooks of the last paragraph and enumerate my feelings next to each:

1. “But I also want an answer from your side”. MY FEELING : I am under attack and imprisoned. I don’t want to explain myself. I feel a very strong resistance to this. I don’t want to answer anyone who demands an answer from me. I feel extremely angry.

2. “your reasons for calling your ex-wife have nothing to do with humanity..”. MY FEELING: I have to convince the other person that I’m not lying and that the reasons for my actions are indeed what I say they are. Makes me feel like a child being scolded unjustly by a stern teacher.

3. “…each time it’s a diff stupid thing…”. MY FEELING: I don’t want anyone to label my feelings and my reasons as stupid. I feel I want to shut this exchange down. I am ready to walk out.

4. “…u make me feel uncomfortable…”. MY FEELING: I feel frustration that my wife is unwilling to take responsibility for her feelings.

5. “…if you have a hang up from ur past of any sort then I would like to know.”. MY FEELING: Makes me want to end this exchange and break off the communication because again I feel like I am being made to answer for who I am and why I am so. This line of questioning is deeply offensive to me.

6. “…be honest to u and me..”. MY FEELING: Asking me “to be honest” feels like a slap in my face. I am always honest I don’t need to prove it to anyone.

It takes me an hour or so to cool down and recognize the huge upwelling of feelings inside me (the ones I list above). Instead of my usual escalatory and drama-perpetuating answer, I finally reply as follows:

Me: ”It’s not a good start when you begin by telling me that my reasons are stupid and that perhaps I’m even lying (“…it has nothing to do with humanity because each time it’s a diff stupid thing…”).”

Since then we have some progress. We are expressing love towards each other and show care. We are not at any clear resolution about our underlying drama, but at least we are not perpetuating it actively either. Perhaps things work out better when we pick up this thread next time.

In my mind I really am no longer prepared to live in “an imaginary and fake world” and pretend that all is well, when some things clearly aren't. I feel we are at a make-or-break moment. We can get to a better place if we tackle this thing. But I'm very scared. The implications for our relationship could be huge – if I am no longer willing to engage in the drama I fear we might break up.

I don't know how justified I am in fearing this. We keep hoping for things to get better without addressing the underlying K-nots, and they always do…right until the moment they fall back down the drama-strewn slope of our lives and the cycle of climbing back out of the hole begins all over again. I feel the torture of an entire lifetime wasted in such a futile exercise is much worse than (the admittedly huge) emotional pain of a break up and the enormous practical difficulties of managing our kids (perhaps across two different continents).

And the finances… god help me with the finances if we break up….my fund is still not launched and even when it does my base pay is minimal. I am scared. But bizarrely I am also at peace. I feel like laughing and crying at the same time.

Yours sincerely.

July 10, 2013

High Risk

Ed,

July 10, 2013

Stunning Finish by a No-Quitter

Ed,

Thirty lengths back to finish first?!

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/the-turnstile/belmont-stakes-warmup-sees-stunning-come-behind-finish-034032861.html

July 10, 2013

Raising Funds for Trading

Hi Ed,

It is great to hear from you--thanks for writing. It certainly has been a fascinating journey since I started my commodity pool after graduating college in the fall of '08. I credit my original trend following interest and inspiration to you and a select few others (ie Dr. Druz), and for that I say THANK YOU. If you are curious how my system has progressed, I have attached my most recent monthly letter to investors with performance.

I am very pleased to have developed my own trading system (both the technical aspect of the trading as well as my psychological "system" that pairs with it), and so I don't necessarily reach out to others as much as I did in the past looking for help to answer technical questions.

Ever since I received your email a couple days ago, I've been thinking about what questions I would like ask you, and I am struggling to come up with any with regards to the actual trading itself. However, I do have some concerning the business side of it, mostly in terms of finding the "right" type of investors to invest in a trend following system. I clearly understand that this type of trading (ie many small losses, seemingly always in a drawdown, option-like payout structures, etc...) is not for everyone. In all reality I have found that it seems to "fit" only a small proportion of the investment community.

Over the past couple years, I have met with some large family offices, institutional seeders, and introducing brokers, and such meetings all seem to end the same way. Many think futures trading is way "too risky," or trading without fundamentals or prediction is fruitless.

Through a college golf alum connection I even had the opportunity to meet Julian Robertson and his team. Their eyes glazed over with confusion when I explained how I trade. At the end of the day, I understand there is a myriad of different ways to make money in markets, and the key is finding the method that fits you personally, but I found it shocking the responses I received from some institutions. It was borderline comical!

I am curious if you found similar experiences in your past. Could you give any advice on where to search for prospective investors? Did you expend energy on raising money, or rather keep your few investors and grow strictly via capital gains?

When I chatted with Dr. Druz a year or so ago on the phone, he recommended raising assets from professionals in my local area (ie lawyers, doctors, small business owners, etc..) and taking advantage of retirement account options (like IRAs) to invest in commodity pools. So far, I have had the most success along this route rather than the institutional one.

Thanks for your time Ed,

July 10, 2013

Wants Trading Advice

Ed Seykota:

I started researching trend following a few months ago and I have enjoyed all the information I have been able to get my hands on.

There have been many great references to you and your trading success. I know that you are the man when it comes to trend trading. I have recently started my trend following approach in my personal account. I do not have a large account (just around $10k) and I was just wondering if you have any advice for me.

I have been trading in the commodity markets for 3 years (mainly option selling) and I have had moderate success, but I am looking to dive in head first and learn the mechanics of trend following.

Option selling gave me consistent profits, but I hated that my upside was always limited by the premium I received for selling the option. Taking "unlimited" risk for a limited profit just didn't seem to make sense after a while.

One or two bad trades seemed to wipe out a whole year worth of profits. I really hope to become a full-time trader in a few years and start trading client money. I know I need to have some experience and build a track record before investing client money.

One day I would love to follow in the footsteps of you and other trend followers like Richard Dennis and Jerry Parker. Thank you for taking the time to read my email.

July 10, 2013

Raising the Bar

Hi Tribe,

I find that setting a higher admission standards helps sending casual traders away. A while ago I says that I am raising the bar for accepting new members. Now I raise it again.

I have intention to grow the tribe to full size of 12 members, but I am also willing to experience the pain of inadequate members, or even membership drawdowns. 

Here are the rules to accept new tribe members.

1. The candidate reads "The Trading Tribe" book. He may buy his own book or find one to read, but he can not borrow his book from other ... Tribe members.
2. The candidate reads at least two years' TT website FAQ correspondence. He provides which years he reads to the Chief.
3. The candidate writes one page to state his intention of joining [the] Tribe.
4. The candidate passes the phone interview by the Chief.
5. The candidate accepts [the] Tribe Rules.

I follow the principle Ed sets to grow a tribe, by making it very hard to get in, and super easy to leave.

If you want to invite a guest to the meeting, please be aware these rules.

Thanks,

July 10, 2013

New Book

Hello Ed -

I'm looking forward to your new book. Our phone conversation whets my appetite for it. Do you have a scheduled release date?

July 10, 2013

The Four Agreements

Ed,

Do you know of the book The Four Agreements?

July 10, 2013

Ed,

Sabadella, Spain -- near Barcelona

http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=GBaHPND2QJg&feature=youtu.be

July 10, 2013

Link

Hi Ed,

I came across your website and wanted to notify you about a broken link on your page in case you weren't aware of it. The link on http://seykota.com/tribe/pages/2003_Sep/Sep_1-6/index.htm which links to http://users.rcn.com/brill/freudarc.html is no longer working.

I've included a link to a useful page on Sigmund Freud that you could replace the broken link with if you're interested in updating your website. Thanks for providing a great resource!

Link: http://users.rcn.com/brill/freudarc.html

Best,
Hanna

July 10, 2013

Air Flight Link

Hi,

I saw this and thought of you.

http://iopscience.iop.org/0031-9120/38/6/001/pdf/0031-9120_38_6_001.pdf

Hope you are well.

More on Sleepy (see below)

Hi Chief,

Thanks for the catch. My wanting the client to revitalize might make him sleepier. |-)

July 8, 2013

Wants to Join the Austin Tribe

Ed,

Would it be possible to join the Austin TT without a written recommendation?

North Richland Hills Tribe Report

Ed,

I am reporting from the North Richland Hills tribe -- as a member who has been "cooking" goes through the rocks process.

The member holds rocks from his Mother – to not say anything and walk away – and from his Father – to hit/break things. He desires to change. I process manage this session and rocks process as he remembers a time when he was 10 at an All Star sporting event.

His team wins; however, he is one of the smaller team members and never plays in the game. He just sits and "cooks" on how he wishes he was playing. The buzzer signals the end of the game, and he never says anything to the coach.

During the rocks process, I play the roles of his Mother, Father, Teammate, and the Coach. His Mother offers him her rock. He rejects it. She doesn't really know what to say or do; she just bows her head and turns around.

His Father offers his rock, and cannot stand it that he will not accept it. Shaking, his Father yells at him to take the rock; all the while, inside the Father is impressed that he has found a new resource. The Father just can't admit that his way could be wrong.

He completes his process by rejecting the rocks his Mother and Father are offering and instead, accepts the rock about telling others how you feel and asking how they feel. He uses this rock to let the Coach know he wants to play before the game ends, and that time is running out.

The Coach feels awful that he had not played in the game. By the end of the role playing process, with this new rock, he is able to tell the coach he really wants to play and that it is important to him, before the game even begins. The Coach is moved by his desire to play in the game, and makes agreements to make certain he gets to play.

The end result – he plays in the game. He is proactively taking steps to ensure he gets what he wants.

As process manager, I feel amazed.

Regards.

Sharing With Wife

Dear Chief,

Great news!!!

Day before yesterday my wife asks me to give her a hotseat session! And we have a good one! One and half a year after I start my tribe work, she experiences it the first time, and she loves it! She goes through the feelings of frustration, hopeless, sadness and loneliness. We also get huge Aha and find out a common rock for her and myself. Which is giving up further effort when meeting daunting/impossible task and feeling our effort is futile. We realize the importance of stick-to-it-ness during down time.

Yesterday she offers me a hot seat, but I am too sleepy (we run hotseat to 3:00AM the night before). But I thank her for the offer.

Our relationship is at all time new high.

Thanks for inventing this beautiful art.

Essential Tribe Report

Ed,

Last night I had a beautiful time with my thirteen-year-old daughter listening to her feelings, and sharing mine with her. When the conversation began she was angry with my wife and I because her electronic device privilege had been suspended until she could clean and tidy her room. She was surly and non-communicative and had posted a sign on her door warning off any would-be intruders to her privacy.

I didn't notice the sign, and went in and asked her how she was feeling. She wasn't very responsive at first, but then shared that she was feeling sad, and, perhaps, depressed. I thanked her for sharing her feelings, and asked her if I could share my feelings with her. I shared with her my feelings of sadness at the sense of distance I felt from her.

We had a great conversation about depression, and what it was, and how it felt, and we both felt better after being able to share our feelings with each other, and my feelings of sadness because of the distance I felt from her disappeared.

Thank for for the tribe lessons in sharing feelings and building intimacy with our loved ones. It is very powerful and yet so simple.

Hi Ed,

Years ago, your concept of Under Fred changed my perception of human interactions. It acted as a tipping point, a catalyst. How did you arrive at this concept? Intuitively?

I was wondering what your opinion was on the wisdom of Taoism and the concept of Mushin no Shin.

Kind regards,

Risking 5%

Dear Ed,

In Schwager's market wizards book, your answer to a position size question appears as you are risking 5% of your equity per trade. I wonder if this indicates a typing mistake or a misunderstanding or an aggressive risk management strategy. Thank you for your continuing support and for inspiring us with your efforts & energy.

Sincerely,

Hi Chief Ed,

We have the first TT meeting of a new session on Sunday, June 30. We have 3 members total in the meeting.

I notice in the drumming session, my mind wanders and I am not able to get into the flow of doing as I usually do.

During the check in, I say that I feel I am away from my feelings for a while. During past two months, I am busy on coding my trading system research platform and back testing some of my ideas. My daily work is full of thinking, coding. I even don't have time to do regular feeling exploration or practice. So I like it very much to have a tribe meeting today. I appreciate that the other two members can come to join this session. In this session we are working on Rocks Process and also I want to rotate process manager roles.

A member says he feel burnt out recently on stress of work and family.

Then we do a quick form receive and send practice to help the new member to warm up.

I get into the form quickly and the receiver starts to pump up my forms. I feel a vacuum suck out my blocked energy during this 3 minutes practice. I feel less stuck and more into meeting flow. I thanks the receiver for his excellent skill.

A new member does a full form development during the send and receive practice. He swing his arms back and forth, stomps his feet. And stand up jumping around. He sweat a lot and looks exhausted after the practice.

A member volunteers to take the hot seat. He tells the tribe that he feels jealous when he hears his brother is buying a new house. He comes to US 5 year earlier than his brother and now he is still renting. He feel he looks worthless when his parents compare him with his brother. We ask him to repeatedly saying words "worthless" and get into that feeling.

One member plays his brother to call him and we replay the drama when he receive the phone call. The brother says on the phone, " I am going to send out an offer for a house." The client tells the tribe that his says "Oh No" in his mind. He holds the phone, curls his right lip, closes his eyes and shakes his head. He reports that he feels a straight line inside his chest. We encourage him to focus and amplify that feeling.

We ask him to amplify his form, but he looks like not wanting to move vividly again. He has less energy than when he is in the send and receive practice. (After the meeting I realize that he might spends most his energy in the send and receive practice ).

He sits there and leans forward, hands on his knees. I encourage him to tighten his body, by keeping his heels up from floor, leaning forward more and scrunching his shoulders. I ask him to freeze in this position and recall if he has similar feeling of jealousy and worthlessness before. He says no.

We continue this way for about half a hour, trying different ways to develop forms to recall memory and find nothing. I feel that I might be acting like a fixer. So I ask the client again whether he is willing to proceed. He says yes.

We role play again and this time I ask client what he does after the phone call. He says he feels jealous and worthless after the phone conversation and sits at home for a hour doing nothing. I ask whether this is what he usually does when feel such feeling and he says yes. He stays still and sit there.

I think this might be a medicinal rock. The client agrees. So this time I ask him to focus on the feeling of wanting to sit there, feeling depressed, lazy and not wanting to do nothing. I share my feeling that I have the same rock and often when I feel frustrated or worthless, I stay there doing nothing, sometimes for a entire day. So we start to focus on the wanting to do nothing forms. He shows lack of energy again. And responds to our receiving in a slow fashion. After a while I ask him whether he recalls anything and he says no.

I feel process stalled. I test his willingness to proceed. And client says he wants to continue the exploration. He sits there and closes his eyes. But his body seems motionless, and lack of energy. He says he can't find that feeling anymore. I ask him whether he recall other incident he acting the same. He says no.

I then ask him whether he wants to explore the feeling of not being able to recall memory, he agrees. He stay in motionless way and for a long while and can't recall any memory.

I run out of rope and feel that further attempt doesn't help. So we check out and end the meeting. Due to member's schedule changes, we decide to skip next weekend and plan the 2nd meeting after.

This is the first time client gets stuck to current situation and doesn't recall any past memory. I find myself not feeling frustration. Somehow I feel curious about this. I wonder if you can see what is happening here.

Maybe the send and receiving practice brings the client into Zero Point and miss the opportunity to recall critical memory? Or there's something inside client which is in the way to reveal deep memory? Or it's me who becomes stale after couple month of intense thinking work and lose the feeling of the golf swing in process managing a meeting? I wonder you might shed some light on this situation.

I really appreciate the new member's commitment to work and the excellent receiving and role play skill of the other tribe member. I feel grateful about this meeting.

Thanks,

Oil

Hi Ed,

I bought oil on the consolidation breakout. I'm adding as it goes higher. I wonder what your view on oil is?

Understanding

Dear Ed,

Last few months have gone by trying to understand myself better. It is time really well spent though no money was made out of it.

An amazing thing has happened with me after reading your replies to my posts - emails to you. I am learning much faster!

I would love to call it lollapalooza effect of reading about Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger And Edward Seykota.

Life seems to be becoming simple. WIP, of course.

Last month I send you many emails and also inform you that there will be less emails. (I do not know how to substitute the word will in the SVO-p style.)

I do not expect that by reading FAQ, I can become calm. But I have.

So many must have who paid proper attention.

You have influenced me a lot.

Compared to what I was, I feel I am better now.

Thanks.

Four On the Floor

Dear Ed,

If convenient, could you please share your views about :

1. Find the root cause, remove it and the effect ceases and its relatedness if any with the Rock Process.

2. False Pride.

3. Biases.

4. Ego. How and why most do not realize that they have it.

Feeling of wanting to know more and become a better person makes me feel good and happy instead of anxious!

I smile. Quite often nowadays. Even while writing this email to you!

Best of the best wishes ...

Getting to the Roots

The Trading Tribe

Dear Ed,

I feel I need to find the root cause of my problems, feel them and remove them so that their effect cease. So I start writing down those problems and take their positive intentions. I realize that the best way to deal with problems is to solve them.

The rock process seems to be most ideal tool to increase my awareness and thus solve my problems.

I meditate regularly nowadays.

I do deep breathing. These make me calm. They help me become a better person.

Root causes of my problems seem to be with what I have accepted from rock donors.

With this, I have started understanding myself better.

Thanks for increasing my awareness levels with your answers.

Lots and lots of hugs and love from my side.

Thank you for all the guidance.

July 5, 2013

Calming Up

Dear Ed,

I do not send so many emails to anybody in my life, except Ed.

2012, I feel intrigued. How is Ed able to guide so clearly. How did he gain this deep knowledge? It is amazing that he shares what he knows.

Can he guide me also if I pay proper attention and leave aside my ego.

What is my intention?

What is the likely result? What is it that I am exactly looking for?

Questions storm by. I take positive intentions of this storm.

I take positive intentions of wanting to ask Ed by requesting answers, not demanding them in any ways.

Today one of my close friend's wife comments to me: You look so calm. So how come you are friends with my husband who is short tempered?

I inform her that Everybody gets what they want!

She seems stunned by this sentence. Then she informs me that actually her husband has become calm compared to what he was after being with me every Friday and Saturdays to play Table Tennis.

I feel happy for them.

I am grateful to Ed.

Best wishes,

Feel the Magic

Ed,

I wonder if dreaming with Ed Seykota teaching you something is a sign of obsessive compulsion.

I wonder if the Trading Tribe symbol refers to Tuit or Pi and if lives are numbers, as a trader I can connect with frequency vibrations or other realms of consciousness through price action.

I wonder if the magic square refers to Fred and the CM.

"The Lo Shu Magic Square not only shows the Connection between the Four Forces that came out of the Two Forces, Expansion and Compression, it also shows the connection between Heaven and Earth.

In the Magic Square of Lu Shu the Even Numbers (2,4,6,8 = 2 x (1,2,3,4 = 2×2)) are Black(Yang, Male). The Odd Numbers (1,3,5,7,9 = 3×3) are White (Yin, Female). The Sum of all the Numbers is 15 (3×5)."

http://hans.wyrdweb.eu/tag/egg/

I wonder if you are a psychic. I wonder if thinking too much is a rock.

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so" (Hamlet Act 2, scene 2, 239–251)

Going Home ( Happy 4th of July!)

Ed,

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=9438508

Trading Tribe Process (TTP) Report

Dear Ed,

This is my report for the Austin Tribe meeting.

I notice I procrastinate.

I intend to focus on feelings and on what I've done since rather than on the process itself, given that for me it was mostly acting. I notice I feel the need to justify myself by saying that my acting contains some true feelings and insights and I fear judgment, yours and that of the Tribe. I also report feeling embarrassment and the urge to gloss over when reading reports that mention me.

My hands are sweaty now.

After our conversation on Friday morning I leave your ranch in a state of shock. I close all the positions of my fund: I may very well have caught a few bottoms, but I can't take it anymore.

I spend the next two days sharing a lot with my girlfriend and parents, a lot comes up and I focus on sharing it. I notice judgment, repression and resistance, both to my feelings and to those of others. I also notice that these feelings usually come in waves: after some sincere sharing I get stuck and then I am able to bring the process again on the right track.

It doesn't always work. Sometimes I feel the urge to end the conversation or just shut down or distract myself. I also notice that I do not always share real feelings and that sometimes I have difficulty determining what my real feelings actually are. Instances of trying to manipulate or hurt my parents come up. When I am open others are open too.

It's very difficult.

I write an email to my siblings sharing my feelings and my desire to have a meeting to inform them about the fund's situation and how I feel and how my intention is to use the situation to clarify and restart and strengthen our relationships. I also ask for their feelings. I get anxious upon sending it. I feel embarrassment and tension. A part of me is certainly wishing to get no responses.

After a few days I get the answers: they all express support in their unique ways and they seem peculiarly unconcerned about the money (and the two who have not invested directly also show disinterest in the fund itself). They all show openness to restarting our relationship and the first concrete step I take is to spend a few days on holiday with my girlfriend, my dad, my brother and his family: I am due to leave next weekend.

I notice I feel different feelings towards them. I feel my strongest relationship is with my brother, who curiously is the one with whom I've had the strongest clash. I feel embarrassed with my sister who has invested with me and I am moved by her supportive response.

I feel little affection and some hostility towards my other sister and I also do not get a very good feeling from her email. I get the feeling she's aloof and not really sincere. This might very well be normal, as I've grown up seeing her no more than once or twice per year and not even every year, given that she's always lived in the U.S. before and now in Argentina. We're also very different people. In any case, I intend to see her the next time she comes to Europe and see what comes up.

The situation with my parents is more complex: after some initial resentment towards my dad, I realize he's changed a lot. He's a very different person from the one I've known growing up (or maybe not, he's just more open), he feels responsible for giving me all that money and he shows a lot of support and compassion. I also feel he's very happy about the fact that his children are for the first time coming together as a family. I recall that he expresses this desire many times in the past and so maybe intentions=results, although at a quite steep price.

Also, the ease with which the family drama (father + distanced children from two marriages) apparently resolves puzzles me and makes me think that this was not actually a real drama.

With my mom the opposite happens: after a very good start made of open sharing I get stuck again and it seems to me she's not really willing to express herself or actually even allow herself to feel certain feelings. I again get the feeling I've had for most of my life, that she's somehow watching my every move and examining and judging me (and probably manipulating me) and that I have to please her and not upset her. I feel blocked, it seems to me she has an agenda for me and knows what is wrong and right for me. I feel trapped and uneasy when around her.

I feel like blaming her and not blaming her at the same time: I recall the sheer effort she put in educating and stimulating and helping me as a child. She does it her own way, which includes a lot of good.

I also recall an episode (actually a detail of an already remembered episode, that comes suddenly one evening when in bed): she rightly suspects a friend of mine who is a guest at our house of stealing my toys, so she asks me to lure him away from his room with an excuse so that she can search it.

I do it and as I do it I feel plenty of horrible feelings. I feel anxious that he might catch me out, I feel anxious that my mom may be right and I fear the unpleasant consequences for me, my friend and everybody, but more than everything else I feel I am doing something wrong that must not be done under any circumstances. I feel a strong desire to just not be there, for the moment and the feelings to just go away. The time that elapses between her asking me to lure him away and my mom arriving in the kitchen where I've brought him feels like an endless torture. I just want to go back and say no when she asks me to do this.

A powerful pattern in my life is to not be able to tell what I want, to feel the need to please others and to not let them down, to not disappoint them. I fear their judgment and maybe I also fear their punishment. I do not know whether this originates there or not, but I certainly know that in that moment I feel that I do not want to do what my mom asks and yet I do it.

An important thing my girlfriend and I do is that we share our own relationship dramas: I attract incredible partners and then I set up impossibly dramatic situations to force them to leave, feel worthless, feel regret, feel angry, feel hopeless, feel I am different from everyone else and somehow bound to be alone and misunderstood and in general punish myself (the punishing comes up in other situations, such as losing money); she finds a partner and then a drama develops so that she can feel she can't be happy, she can't have a lasting relationship etc. and then she leaves. By sharing these dramas we somehow neutralize them and we reinforce our commitment to each other. Sometimes I feel fear my drama may surface again.

I also start paper trading with a solid and very prudent risk management framework and discretionary, technical approach with guidelines for identifying potential trades that I intend to refine as I practice (btw, I do have some useful knowledge about trading and investing, that I choose to ignore to set up my drama: e.g. I clearly saw the volatility coils that developed in gold and silver prior to their collapses).

I still do not know what to do with my fund, whether to liquidate and just focus on managing my own capital it or to start again once I have a clearly defined and successful approach.

All in all I am making progress and I thank you for your help, your support and for playing along with me as much as was needed. I also thank you for your suggestion on how you choose which cantaloupes to pick (albeit the part on flowers and insects is beyond me ;)).

I still feel a lot of anxiety and confusion and fear of not doing enough/not being good enough. I tend to focus on the negatives, I tend to feel overwhelmed by difficulties, even small one, and get into panic mode and freeze or abandon what I am doing. I feel some progress here as well.

I particularly fear taking the hot seat as I feel I do not know how to do it, how to just let go and intensify the feelings as they come up. A lot of my feelings just go on inside me with little external manifestations. I also feel fear of failure and of not coming up with a memory. I basically erase the past from my mind and very rarely think about it. I am in the process of watching old photographs to reconnect with it.

I also want to share that I relate to the member who reports scepticism about the "rosy" outcome of one of the rocks processes (and I do feel a hint of that feeling when she mentions it during check out): I often feel this bitter feeling of "this just can't be real/this is BS" and I associate it with envy and jealousy about other people's achievements and how come I don't get it.

Curiously, I also relate to her desire to control the process and arrive at the meeting with a "prepackaged" process with everything already figured out, including of course the end.
Writing to FAQ helps a lot!

Best,

Event Pricing

Ed,

On this page:
http://www.seykota.com/tt/2013/Jun/21-30/default.html

This FAQ reply appears, dated June 24:

Thank you for raising this issue. The price of the Workshop normally rises over the period from the announcement date through the event date; you get the discount by acting promptly. You might consider taking your feelings about <entitlements> to Tribe.

I notice that some events, for example the Burning Man event prices tickets using volume_sold as the price escalation trigger. For example, after N1 tickets are sold at (lowest) price X, then no more tickets are available at that price. Instead N2 tickets become available at price X+(Price_Increase).

I notice this adds a "certain uncertainty" about price...unless I act now.

Hi Ed,

I love your June 9, 2013 FAQ reply: "TTP represents the application of feedback dynamics and systems thinking to the art and science of freeing people from the limitations of their own patterns".

My goal is to make your statement clear to someone without systems experience. My solution is to define systems thinking and feedback dynamics.

Systems thinking: Seeing how groups of people or things operate together and produce a pattern of behavior.

Feedback dynamics: The exchange of information in a system. Feedback loops are how a system runs itself.

I wonder if you have any thoughts that might further clarify your original statement or my definitions.

Happy Independence Day,

Sincerely,

July 4, 2013

Arbitrage Opportunity

Dear Ed,

Just for your ref.

http://www.amazon.com/review/R1XG6PPF7W9S49/ref=cm_cr_notf_fhv_prd

Best wishes,

July 3, 2013

Genuine Accident

Hi Ed,

In recent months you have posted several photos. I really appreciate your choice to share small pieces of your personal life, it has a sense of authenticity. When you write "genuises" instead of a simply "geniuses" it's not by accident: you're revealing who you really are: a "genuine genius." Thank you for all the time you turn into a gift for the TT community.

All the best to Aziza !

A hug

July 3, 2013

Bead Chain

Ed,

Pretty interesting phenomenon ...

http://io9.com/this-is-the-bead-chain-experiment-its-about-to-melt-y-602029455

July 2, 2013

Facial Expressions

Dear Ed,

I hope you are well. I wish I could give you a hug and shake your hand.
I'm attaching a URL for an article that you (and your readers at FAQ) might find interesting.

http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/article/2013/06/25/emotions-facial-expressions-not-related/print/

Warm regards

July 1, 2013

Trading Tribe Process (TTP) Report

Ed,

I plan to leave early to arrive at tribe on time since we meet at the ranch. I receive directions from Emma via email days before with an address. I turn onto Hubbard St. and cross the railroad tracks. As I drive down Hubbard St. I come to a cattle guard with a swinging gate across with a lock and chain on it. For a moment I feel confused. I know where the ranch is because I have been there before. I can see the ranch house and the cars but there is a "locked" gate in between me and the house. I do not know it is not locked yet because I have not checked yet. For a moment I feel "locked out" and isolated. Many feelings run through my head in a short moment. I feel some feelings that maybe I am not wanted or excluded. I catch my running feelings and thoughts and come back to the idea that the gate must not be locked and is just closed with the chain laying over with the lock to prevent unwanted traffic. I understand the concern. I also am aware that the ranch is out in the boondocks and, if I did not already know my way it can be a little hard to find even with a map or GPS. I grew up around a lot of rural places and I know the feeling of wondering if this is the right place or not the right place. Am I going the right way or should I keep looking? I pull up to the ranch house and go in. I enjoy seeing the tribe members. As the time gets closer for tribe to start everyone notices a tribe member is missing. We have 9 minutes to start and I feel the need to give him an accurate picture of the directions…especially regarding the gate.

I feel the gate may provide confusion since he has never been to the ranch and even though he may be late the gate may provide enough confusion to delay his arrival much more. I go out to my truck and check to see if I have his number and I do, so I call. He states he has missed the turn earlier and is running late. I assure him he is heading in the right direction now but I also attempt to give him an accurate map and directions regarding the gate/lock, etc... I feel I convey the truth to him about the "landscape" since I feel the boonies can be hard to navigate sometimes. I tell him I will leave my phone on if he cannot find the location. I come back inside and the meeting is about to begin. I disclose the fellow tribe members whereabouts and the situation. I ask Ed if I should leave my phone on in case he gets lost. I am not sure exactly of the reply but something is said about caretaking or taking too much responsibility for others is conveyed and Ed says to turn the phone off and the meeting will begin.

I feel agitated and angry but am not able to clearly convey my feelings. I say something to the effect that normally when one lives way out in the country accurate directions are given. Country folks usually help someone find their way if they are coming over. I feel anger and frustration about the inaccuracy of the map and I also feel a need to help a friend and tribe member find his way. I feel this more so since I perceive an obstacle in the way. We do a check-in and I can only express I feel hot and sweaty. I actually feel f--king pissed off about that (expletive) gate. I notice I have some judgment about expressing anger in the moment…I hold it in or am not able to express it constructively. It feels like my hard drive is fragmented in that moment and it stops and starts. I feel confusion about this feeling.

Tribe check-in continues and each tribe member shares briefly about how they feel in the moment. A new tribe member begins to share and almost immediately goes into a form. He begins crying then sobbing. The tribe encourages him to continue and he sobs and cries loudly then goes onto the floor. He begins beating the floor with his hands and pillows are provided. He continues beating the floor and kicking his legs…flailing with both sobs, crying and anger. I relate to the form. I recall when I am young as a child doing this form. My nephew, who is 3 does this form very well. I encourage him when I am there but his form develops quickly into throwing sharp or dangerous objects so I have to clear out when this occurs. Everyone encourages our fellow tribe member in this form and he becomes more aware of feelings that need to be expressed. He seems to gain some freedom to express his feelings in the moment and his desire for drama in expressing these feelings. He discusses perhaps getting involved in an acting class to explore various feelings that want or need a context to be expressed. The lost tribe member arrives and expresses his intention to be late to each tribe member. Everyone accepts and acknowledges his intention to be late. Ed asks if there is anyone who wants to work and a tribe member says he is ready.

He describes his disappointment about not meeting up with his sister on father's day when he runs a ½ marathon. He feels disappointment a lot in his life. Ed comments he is attracting disappointment. He gets into a form and when the form peaks Ed asks him to freeze it and turn up the intensity of the feeling. Ed then asks him to recall a time when he is a child. He describes being disappointed when his father has agreed to come back home at a certain time and take him to dinner and spend time with him. He waits and waits and then goes to bed. He wakes in the morning to find his dad asleep and hung over on the couch. He tries to talk with his dad but he is still hung over and sniffs and rubs his nose like someone who has used cocaine. Ed asks the tribe members willingness or desire to have new resources. He states he has the intention of attracting disappointment down pat and there is no reason to change such a great algorithm. He states he wants new resources and we set up a role play to incorporate new resources.

I play the role of his father and someone plays the role of his mother, who shares with him how to experience disappointment and disgust regarding his father. Someone else plays the new rock donor who gives him the new resources from his loving tribe members. We are at the place his father lives and I (as his father) tells him I am leaving for awhile to run some errands and some work and will be back at 5pm to pick him up to go eat at his favorite place to eat. I convey we will spend some time together. I leave and he waits at home and 5 p.m. comes and goes. He waits and waits while I am out drinking with my buddies and getting high. I come home and lay down on the couch…drunker than Cooter Brown. He comes later and tries to wake me and talk with me but I am incoherent and disregard his desire to communicate. His desire is unimportant to me and I am self centered and medicating feelings regarding my failed marriage and the disrespect my wife conveys. I feel this will affect my son and our relationship eventually. I feel despair. We run the role play a couple of times. He agrees that the drama feels accurate.

Each time the role play is done his mother comes with the disappointment/rejection rock and gives it to him. He accepts it. We discuss what other resources he could use. The tribe decides to give him the resources of sharing his feelings and receiving his father's feelings. We run the role play again and the new rock donor gives him the new resources. I make the agreement with him to pick him up at 5pm to go eat at his favorite restaurant. He waits as I miss the time and then come home to sleep on the couch. He wakes me the next morning and asks if he can share his feelings with me. He shakes me a little to wake me up. I agree to hear his feelings. I hear his disappointment and feelings of rejection regarding our missed date for dinner. I express my feeling of despair and the distance I feel with my family from the divorce. I feel the rejection my ex-wife is transmitting even though it may not even be verbal. I convey my feelings of sadness about missing our time together. I feel disappointment in myself also. I feel I am not so drunk as to understand or communicate with my son. I am playing possum to some degree trying not to face my own mistake.

Deep down inside me there is love for my son and a desire to share intimacy with him. I have medicated all these feelings for too long. I want to be a father to my son even if I have screwed up for far too long. We continue to communicate and make another agreement to go to dinner that evening. I come home at 5pm as promised and we connect and go to dinner. We run the role play of his conversation regarding meeting on father's day with his sister. A clear agreement is made regarding their meeting. He is excited to spend time with his sister and her family. The role players share their feelings about the drama in character then are released from their roles. The tribe goes around and shares their feelings about the role play and the results. I relate particularly to this role play. I notice a pattern in my family for the mother discrediting the father. It seems to me the intention is for the mother to receive all the love and admiration from the children. Maybe she wants to be a martyr or convey this to gain some empathy from the children. In any event the result is to disconnect the relationship of the father to his children or the grandfather from their children. I feel sad my relationship with my own grandfather was interrupted by this type of drama. Seeds of distrust or disrespect cloud a child's emotional connection with an important loved one. I feel sadness and anger about this.

In my own family I go through a divorce. I notice my ex wife doing the same strategy. I notice even before we are married that her mother does the same strategy regarding her own father. I notice that my children feel that they must choose between their love for their mother and myself.

The rejection towards me is clear even if it is not spoken. She uses religion as the control knob to some degree…or false religion I should say. I feel hope though that, with time perhaps connections will be repaired. I feel sad I am not sharing more feelings and intimacy with my children. I suppose I accept some of that as normal since they are all in college and are busy with friends, studying, work, etc…

We break for dinner and after another tribe member wants to work. The process is a continuation from our previous meeting in which Ed asks him to measure everything about himself. He expresses a desire in the previous meeting about meeting a woman but has feelings of not measuring up. He describes measurements he has taken. He details the length of his hair, fingers, etc… Ed comments that he makes no measurement of his height or chest size…something a woman would probably be interested in at first look. He comments he did not measure his penis because he knew Ed would ask if he did. Ed comments that astronauts penis measurements were to be taken on space flights using mercury but the astronauts refused to have the measurements taken.

I make a note of taking my own measurements as an assignment from the previous meeting. I make a measurement of my penis. I feel different feelings about various measurements at this time…with my current weight. My thighs, calves and waist are much too big. I feel OK with my upper body measurements but I do not like the appearance right now…flabby and out of shape. I also notice I would like my fingers to be a little longer. I notice I approximate Michelangelo's David when I am younger, except for the size of the hands. Perhaps I console myself that I approximate some significant statute but I have feelings of wanting a bigger penis…a penis that hangs down around my knees. I notice feelings of rejecting or non-acceptance of certain body parts skew my own ability to love myself correctly. Ed asks him further about these feelings regarding the measurements and a form develops. The tribe encourages him to get into the form. He recalls a time when he is a teenager and is wrestling with a friend and another boy calls him "chicken legs". He says "easy chicken legs" while they are in the middle of wrestling. The other kids around watching chuckle at this comment. He feels rejected and belittled. He recalls his feelings regarding the boy who calls him the "CL" name and remembers the feeling of wanting to get even. Later in college he tweaks him when the boys girlfriend calls him and he asks where her boyfriend is. She replies that he is at so and so bar and he tells her that he was there all night and he was not there. She calls her boyfriend and finds out he has lied to her then the boyfriend call the tribe member threatening him. He feels some satisfaction in getting even. Ed explains he has some great resources and asks him if he wants to keep these resources. He says he wants new resources. Ed tests for his resolve regarding these resources. He affirms he definitely wants new resources. A role play is set up when he is called the "CL" word. Another tribe member plays the friend he is wrestling with. A role play develops and he re-experiences the feelings of being called a name in front of his friends. After he forgives the rock he shares feelings with his friend that called him a name. He is able to connect with this friend. A transition to new resources is evident.

July 1, 2013

Preemptive Living

Dear Ed,

I have come up with a name for the type of living I realize I have been doing.

I call it Preemptive Living. The dictionary defines "preemptive" as "taken as a measure against something possible, anticipated, or feared."

I am beginning to see how frequently I make decisions, particularly regarding relationship issues, on the basis of trying to avoid a negative outcome.

Of course, this negative outcome is one that I imagine or assume, since the transaction hasn't even occurred at the point when I am trying to decide what to do or say. All that has occurred is my wanting to say or do something and my assumption that I will cause a disruption in my connection with the other person if I express what I am feeling.

So, in my attempt to avoid something that may or may not happen, I hold back sharing feelings and therefore create the disconnection that I feared in the first place. Duh!

I feel ready to risk letting the outcome be whatever it needs to be, based on honesty between me and whomever I am talking to. It is like making a simultaneous commitment to myself and to the other person instead of living in an imaginary and fake world that doesn't work anyway.

I believe that learning about TTP, reading your book and FAQ, and having a Tribe to work within are the core elements of my being able to make this change.

Thanks!