 Welcome back to the Trade Hacker Mindset. I am here with Jared Tendler for coaching session number two. Trading the markets can be difficult to master and seemingly just out of reach. Professional traders have a secret. Trading requires total mental and emotional control. It requires the Trade Hacker Mindset. All right, so let's jump in Jared. Excited to dive a little bit deeper. You gave me some homework last time and that was to fill out some perfectionism worksheets and some just kind of data collection to kind of monitor my emotions and decision-making process. So, yeah, obviously anytime I give you some assignment, some curious on what it was like to fill out, we can kind of go over some of the specifics in here. In terms of like the perfectionism worksheet, I will kind of start there first. Looking at this first page, which is the skills that have been hardened from trading, both from a tactical standpoint, mental standpoint, and then also looking at how those skills are transferable. Yeah, what was it like to kind of think through those, you know, you've got some good ones that are listed here. My guess is you might be a little bit kind of harder in yourself and not listing more skills because I'm certain that they exist. But yeah, what was it like for you to kind of go through that? Yeah, anytime I'm, I don't know, for me anytime I am kind of listing, you know, the accomplishments, same kind of thing. Anytime I'm listing things about myself, it definitely takes some extra brainpower. I gotta really think about it because it doesn't come natural to me. Why do you think that is? I don't know, probably, well, one, because I just, I've almost never done it. So it's just kind of a new thought process. And two, I don't know, probably because it's just not something that I, I don't know, it's just not something I focus on, I guess. Yeah, I mean, they obviously exist. So there's not a question of like creating something that's not here. It's more a question of just being aware of the assets that you have. And to me, I think the value is that the more aware you are, the more you can actually leverage them. And, you know, so, yes, it's very common for people not to be good at it because they don't pay attention to or think about it. And it's kind of more of the, you know, what's on the horizon, right? The goalposts are always gonna be moving. I gotta keep chasing that. I'm not on time or desire to be introspective and try to figure out what I'm doing well and to leverage that. You kind of are doing that somewhat implicitly and automatically. But when it comes to stabilizing emotions and having the confidence to support, you know, a rigorous adherence to a strategy, sometimes it can be helpful to have these called out so you can at least maybe breathe a little bit easier not to feel like you're constantly chasing your tail or that the goalposts are always moving without having any semblance of something kind of building behind you. Kind of like that, the rock climbing analogy I gave last time. So yeah, we look at your back testing, trade plan execution, math being kind of three hard tactical skills, but there has to be a lot more that are in there. And I was kind of more curious about the other ones because there was, you know, mental skills of thinking of probabilities, big picture, not focusing on outcomes of individual trades, the desire to always be continuously learning, which I think is a massive strength of yours given all the things we've talked about. Your teaching ability, stress management, how you perceive the market, your beliefs about the markets and how you view indicators being a number of other ones when you kind of draw, yeah. I was just gonna say, going back to the hard tactical skills, you know, I don't use indicators. I don't try to, I mean, I do try to read price action when I'm doing some, you know, discretionary directional type trading, but everything that I do for the most part is pretty probability-based based on a back test or just kind of probabilistic outcome based on the option spread that I'm trading. So anyway, just a couple, two cents about that just to kind of help. So yeah, I agree. I think hopefully I have more hard tactical skills than that, but from a trading perspective, that's why, yeah, I just kind of stopped at those three. I couldn't really think of any additional ones. Yeah, and there's no, like, I don't want you to overthink this either because the end to the, like, now being a good teacher, right? There's more that you're communicating to others that probably are reflective of those skills. So you're probably getting a lot of it. You're probably more aware of those hard tactical skills just from having those conversations and sharing within your community. And again, I don't want you to overthink it. It's more about creating something that you can leverage and has that stability element to it. And so just kind of going through the exercise itself and we're hearing kind of all of this now, did anything change? Like did anything kind of click in place or was it just a simple exercise to do and didn't really provide much value? No, well, I mean, I think it definitely provided value from, it's just stuff that I, I'm so into my trading on a day-to-day basis and into the community on a day-to-day basis that I think the biggest thing for me is it helps me take a step back and look at what I'm doing and are there things that I can be doing better? You know, it's kind of like the whole adage, working in your business versus on your business. I mean, same kind of thing, both from a perspective of navigation trading and my own personal trading. So that's where I saw the biggest value, started kind of making me think about both of those things from like an outsider looking in as opposed to me just kind of in my day-to-day routine going through it. Right, the hamster wheel got to stop for a minute. You get to step off and so in doing that, again, it's kind of hard to express this, right? The greater bone densities, again, kind of did, was there any of that? Is it too soon to tell or was there any kind of material change that you could recognize? Well, the material thing for me was now when I was going through different things in my day-to-day process, I could feel these things in the back of my head because I had thought about them. And so- So almost like more awareness? And maybe this will get more- More appreciation for it? More appreciation and maybe this will relate more to the data collection worksheets when we get to those, but yeah, in just my decision-making processes or how I'm communicating things to other people in the community, I had some of these things that I put down in my mind while I was communicating these things or while I was making different decisions. Yeah, that's interesting. So I found that teaching is a fantastic way of learning for yourself. Oh, that's best. Your expertise. And so the more that you, maybe this is kind of helping to systematize a bit more of that communication, which has to be inferring a system that already exists, which then if it gets more solidified in your own mind, it should actually help to start to free up your mind a little bit. When there's so much kind of data collection and absorption that's gone on, if there's not as much consolidation, right? It's kind of, do you remember back in the day where you could kind of like defragment your computer on Windows, you could kind of see all the little data kind of, it's kind of like that, right? And so that consolidation in your mind, frees up that space that is limited, right? We have a limited resource for how much we can think about at one point. And so when that consolidation starts to kind of harden, we remove some of those data elements that previously needed conscious or semi-conscious thinking to be more automated, more automatic. And now you have more space to absorb market data, maybe adapt and have true discretion, not the emotionally based pseudo discretion. Yeah, I'm a big believer in everything you just said. In fact, we were just having a conversation in our community between a few of us within the last couple of weeks, because what I do is I come out with kind of my trade plan one month at a time for my position size, how I manage each strategy and all that stuff. And one member kind of showed kind of what he's doing. And one of the reasons that he's doing it is to reduce the mental capital. So maybe it didn't perform quite as well in a back-testing scenario, but it freed up so much mental capital. An example is that you put a trade on and some of our strategies have multiple profit targets. And so if you're in the trade, you're using mental capital on that trade, whether even if you're doing different stuff and then coming back and looking like that trade's on, you have to focus on it, right? You're using mental capital. And one of the changes that I made to a lot of my strategies is I just removed the multiple profit targets, profit targets. So when that hits, the trade's out. It now completely removed that mental, that focus that I was having on that that I could free it up and use that for other things. So 100% I'm tracking with you. That's a big thing for me because I've got a lot of my plate. Yeah, and again, I don't want the overthinking to click in place. I took a golf lesson from a very good player years ago and I was struggling getting out of the bunker. And he basically said to me, well, you're taking too much sand. And said, okay, well, how do I take less sand? And he said, well, I just, when I did it, when I get in there, I think take less sand and I take less sand. So now for him to actually spend time really systematizing how he actually can manipulate the golf club to take less sand would probably make him a worse bunker player, right? We don't want, I don't want you to be thinking about how you're walking, right? These are kind of policy processes. But it sounds like what this has done is give you some maybe like bigger heuristics and ideas for which can create some consolidation. And then as you go through your day to day, bringing it back to that, should simplify your communication to the members and also then for yourself as you're getting into trades like what specifically are you looking for in more precise and surgical fashion, which should then kind of feed back into a sense of pride, confidence, accomplishment that can provide that emotional base of operation so that you're not again kind of getting swept up in this feeling of lacking, but what was kind of driving that excessive competitiveness that was causing you to size too large and some of the other mistakes that were kind of occurring. Right, gotcha. Yeah. Yeah, so is there, I guess just to clarify, so is there a sense of appreciation or a pride accomplishment for these skills? Yeah, yeah, I don't think I would have written, that's kind of what I was going through in my mind. I think these are skills that I'm proud of. Okay, all right, so let's go through a couple of the accomplishments. We don't have to go through all the ones that you mentioned, but just sort of first out like, what was it like then to actually go through the accomplishments themselves and in looking at the key steps that were taken to achieve them, the difficulties and or mistakes that kind of went along with it, what was it like to go through that? Yeah, I mean, I definitely had a hard time kind of thinking of things here, and maybe it was just, maybe I was overthinking it, but I was like, I think I asked you last time, does this need to be trading related or should it be just personal? And it says right on your sheet that it could be both, but so, well, a couple of things. I did a couple of them the same day, and then I skipped a couple of days by accident, which I know is not what this is supposed to be. It's supposed to be kind of an everyday consistent thing. You made it pretty clear that that was where you'd get the most value. So I think between now and our next session, as I continue to get more consistent on doing this every day, that'll help too, but as far as going through it, you know, yeah, it was interesting, like for example, the first one I have up on the sheet was, so recently I bought a condo downtown as my trading office, and I had a goal. I was like, okay, I'm not gonna do this until I've surpassed 200K for the year in profits. I've been searching for it for a long time because I wanted to do it, but it was amazing how since I've been in this office, just the environment that I've created, I mean, I don't know how I did it for any other way. So that was pretty awesome. And I never really thought of that as an accomplishment, I guess, until I wrote it down and started thinking about it. You know, another one was at the end of 2022, I moved all my trade tracking from spreadsheets to a, you know, to Trader Sync, which is the software that I use, you know, steps I took. I mean, I tested a bunch of different tracking software spreadsheets, different ways of doing that. I was always frustrated with the amount of time it took. You know, when I place a trade, A, I have to, I place it, then I have to share it with the community, then I have to log it. You know, all these different steps, it was like every time I took a trade, it was a process, you know? And it almost, and what I realized is sometimes I wouldn't take a trade just because I was like, oh, if I take this trade, then I'm gonna have to go through this process. So, you know, so freeing up that, going back to the mental capital, freeing that up was big and then B, just the value of the tracking and the performance data and all the metrics that I have available now has just allowed me to kind of go back through my trades and be like, oh, that's interesting. I don't think I really understood that about my trades on this specific strategy and it allows me to tweak those and do different things to continue to get better. So, so that was a, And did you think about that as an accomplishment before? No, no. I mean, I certainly think I've thought about, man, this is, you know, this has been such an improvement in my processes and my trading, but I didn't necessarily think, good job, but an accomplishment, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah. And does that, if I ask the same question as before, like why not is the answer the same as you mentioned before, just kind of always looking at the horizon as what's next and not really taking the time to kind of reflect on it? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Yeah, there's a jury to which it's sort of kind of implies that like this was expected, which again, may have been true at the time. Like you were expecting yourself to have found, you know, a better way to track your trades and to get this condo. But like was it, you know, at the time, like kind of truly an expectation? Yeah, I think so. Okay. So yeah, then I guess looking at it now, why does it deserve some recognition? I mean, both of them. I think that, I don't know, I just, I'm a big believer. I think you should always kind of celebrate the wins. You know, it's kind of like when we, you know, in our community, somebody, we have a good day, we have a good trade, you know, it's fun to celebrate the wins, you know? So I think the same thing here. And I don't do that enough, you know, I celebrate winning trades. Why wouldn't I be celebrating the little, the little outside wins going on in my, you know, around my trading world as well? Right. And does that celebration, I mean, again, as we're still kind of new early in the process, but do you think that that celebrating those wins is going to allow the competitiveness to be kind of deployed in the right way versus it kind of getting excessive? Cause the thesis was that there could be some of this compensation going where, you know, trying to prove to others and to make yourself kind of feel, you know, solid, right? Has to come through more and more in ways that kind of run counter to the strategy that you've developed. And, you know, sometimes that competitiveness can be drawn or fueled by a lack of recognition for things that deserve those celebrations. Yeah, I mean, as I start going through these, one of the other thoughts that I had was, man, this was really kind of eye-opening from that perspective. So that now like, now I'm kind of like, what other goals like these can I be setting? Should I be doing? I mean, that's kind of where my mind went anyway. Yeah, so, I mean, like if you're setting your trading plan for the month, you know, you could look at setting goals kind of ancillarily to either the community to yourself on either a monthly or early, yearly basis. And by maybe just writing them out or posting them somewhere visibly, you'll then have the opportunity to kind of reflect back at the end, like when that's either been accomplished or not and determine, right? If it wasn't, you know, why, why'd you fail? Because that's important, right? What lessons and mistakes, et cetera, what can be learned to fuel future progress or success. And if you succeed, then you go through the exact same process, but there's like a clear kind of point in the future that's already been determined. Yeah, yeah, I agree. Yeah, and maybe the same value for you will be what you mentioned earlier, just like having those points be just a little bit more clearly in mind. Because again, I think when it's an expectation, it's not to say that it doesn't drive you, but maybe there's just a little bit of loss of some specificity because it's not on your mind in the right way as frequently as what we're describing now it would be. Right. All right, so let's maybe switch gears and go to the data collection worksheet. I know you sent me an email early in the week just to make sure that you're doing it well, which you were, and then I saw a couple others that came through. So data collection on the first couple were, here were trades that you took that actually weren't mistakes, but there was some kind of emotional content that kind of needed to get called out, right? There was some apprehension, some FOMO that was present but managed. Is that, am I properly understanding what that was? Correct, yep. Great, okay. So the presence of that kind of apprehension, FOMO reaction tells us that the problem has not been resolved yet because the goal was eventually to get to the point where these situations does not trigger any of that. So now we look at the other ones and there were some clear mistakes that took place. So yeah, I mean, there's a lot of technical detail in here that's kind of beyond my scope but from a mental emotional standpoint, A, was it helpful in the moment in real time to kind of be accountable and write out the details of this to kind of help maintain that presence of mind and or capture elements that would be useful for our analysis now. Yeah, I think the biggest one was the, that FOMC 30 Delta Strangle one. Yep. This is one that just, I mean, sometimes I'll make a mistake and I don't even think twice about it. Sometimes I make a mistake and it sticks with me for days. You know, it's one of those that I think about when I'm going to bed at night, I think about it when I wake up in the morning and this was one of those. You know, this is one where I had very specific setup. I had a very specific profit target of 35%. This is a trade that I do during the FOMC announcement and instead of putting in my profit target at 35%, I essentially, the market started to go down and I, you know, in my mind, I was like, oh yeah, this thing's going to keep going lower. That, you know, I'm, so I took my, I didn't have a profit target on. I was like, I'm just going to let this thing ride. And next thing you know, it comes down and would have hit that profit target. In fact, everybody in our community that was, we were doing it live, everybody in the community who followed the plan got out, hit their profit. And all of a sudden, wouldn't you know it? The market bounces back up and now I'm, now I missed it. So bottom line is it, you know, it went from a, you know, $3,000, $4,000 winner to ended up being a $3,000 or $4,000 loser. You know, it's a pretty decent swing. And so that was one where I was just like, A, you know, having that self-talk with myself, like why did I do that? I mean, I've traded FOMC, every single FOMC meeting since probably 2020, or excuse me, 2000, since the year 2000. I know that it typically just doesn't go in one direction. Right? I mean, it gyrates back like, so I don't know, just kind of after the fact is like, what was I doing? Why did I, why did I do that? And sorry, and you were asking that question in a far more practical, pragmatic way versus in the past where it would just like kind of spiral more of like a self-critical way. Well, I was saying, what I was saying before is sometimes I will, I would make mistakes and it just, I just, I don't really, yeah, I kind of sweep it under the rug. I don't really think about it too much. But then sometimes like this one, it just really sticks with me. Like it, you know, the frustration doesn't go away. You know, sometimes if I make a mistake, if I do something stupid, yeah, it's frustrating in the mode, but then sometimes it's gone within a minute. And I never think about it again. This was one where it just kind of stuck with me and you know, I just continue to have that frustration in my mind about why I did that with that trade. I mean, it wasn't like it was a huge losing trade. You know, it wasn't so monetarily, it wasn't that big of a deal, but just the way that I handled it mentally was frustrating. Okay, so then I guess the next step of progress here is to make those questions more practical and pragmatic because it is a legitimate question. The problem is right now, there's maybe a bit of inference about why you didn't do it, right? Which is, you know, because you were stupid, you were greedy, you were like all of the sort of the negative things, I'm sure much worse than I'm saying in your mind can come out, but there's nothing of like productive value kind of gained from that, which is fine. I mean, given, you know, kind of our stage of the process to capture the data is essential because now we have more specifics to work with. And you did expand on it in just kind of talking about it because in the data collection you said the thought was the market looks like it will continue lower. And that is a very kind of practical, maybe a cleaned up version of it because you said like, oh yeah, this thing is going to keep going lower, right? There's much more. Oh yeah, I know what I'm doing here. Yeah, exactly. And so, you know, that kind of expresses more of the what I would call shitty sidekick, right? The belief that we can actually predict future price movement kind of being evident here. But like the why? Like why would I have such strong deterministic conviction on this one particular trade? Maybe there is something specific about the setup or maybe it's something specific about where you were mentally and emotionally at that point and what got triggered. So the practical piece. Think it back, I mean, I would think on that specific case it was just greed. You know, I just thought, you know, I saw the profits come quick and I thought they were gonna keep growing even quicker. You know, so there was no technical setup, valid reason other than greed in that case. Got it. Like you saw the profits come quick. Just thinking more broadly at maybe some of the other mistakes that occur. Is that a common trigger, do you think? That like quick profit, you know, getting a trade quickly in profit and very close to your target that that is a trigger for greed? For me, I would say yeah. Okay. And what is it specifically about profits coming quick that sparks it? I think it's, I think it just is kind of like if it already made this much this quick, I haven't even been in the trade. Maybe it's not that I'm kind of saying it out loud. Maybe it's, I don't deserve to take this much profit this quickly, I need to stay in the trade longer. I mean, that's kind of counterintuitive to what I was saying before, but at the same time it's like the profits came too quick. If it happened this quick, there's gotta be more. You know? This is what, I mean, I'm gonna pause for a second because I know what's like the secondary kind of layer of awareness that's going on in your mind right now is like, how is it possible that I could have this kind of a basic flaw present in my mind? But it just goes to show you because this is incredibly common, especially for traders at your level. It's like the debugging of the system, right? This is the algo with just a little flaw in the background that's causing these error messages or these kind of misfires. And once you say it out loud, right? It's not to make you look stupid. It's to say that we all have these more primitive ideas that can kind of hang around in the back of our mind that don't get kind of fully debugged. And my guess is that maybe early on in trading, this was an idea that just kind of got planted. And just like stuck around, you know? So yeah, I mean, anything else you'd kind of add to the details here in terms of what would describe your thinking or reactions in that moment? No, I mean, I think that's probably right. I mean, because I don't have any other logical reason for it other than it's just something that was, yeah, just there's a bug in there that was programmed early. Yeah, I think that's probably right. Okay, so just for the abundance of clarity for you, maybe the listeners as well, what's the flaw here? What's the thing that you need to correct? Well, I need to just stick with my plan. I need to follow my rules. I need to, I mean, to me, again, it comes down to greed. You know, I had a plan. I knew the plan has a very high probability chance of working. Why not just take what the market gives me and be happy with it? Why was I trying to go, why was I trying to get more? Because you didn't deserve to take profit this quickly. Yeah. That's the problem. So the answer can't be like what you've been using before now, right? Stick to the plan because the sticking to the plan is suppressing this flaw. It's not accounting for it, right? The plan needs to account for there being this bug in the back of the system that says when you're in profit quickly and you can close a trade quickly, there's probably more and I don't deserve to take profit here because I'm gonna get more. I deserve to take profit at the full extent of what this thing is gonna provide, which is maybe double what I see already. And so I'm gonna stick around and get it, you know? Because like the grade is a great headline, but it's not precise. And for a trader at your level, we gotta get really, really precise because this is what we're cleaning up. So the next time that you're in a trade, sorry, the next time you're in profit this quickly, this thing is gonna spark. Now, will you have enough presence of mind to hold to the strategy? That's the question. We don't want that to be the case. So, you know, the more, I think kind of prudent approach here is to write down as part of your preparation for each trading day, right? If a trade is quickly in profit, right? Look out for signals of greed, right? Look out for the, oh yeah, this thing is gonna keep going, right? Any of that, you know, deterministic type thinking because it's connected to a deeper belief that this trade has more offer, which is just dead wrong. It's a fiction of your imagination. Or it's a dinosaur from, you know, the early days of trading when you maybe wished or hoped or believed that that was true. And now you have sufficient evidence to prove that that's not the case. But sometimes these things can hang around because I said the word wish. Sometimes early on, and maybe this is going too far back in your trading history, but sometimes there can be a hope or a wish kind of attached to some of these beliefs and that's why they kind of hang around for a while. And so maybe there was a part of you early on that actually did believe or wished or hoped that it were true. Like if I can make twice as much as I was anticipating, well, who would say no to that? Does that- Yeah, no doubt. I mean, I think one of the biggest things that I've always had as a trader is holding onto positions too long. You know, some people, they see a profit and they want it, they take it off. You know, they want it, they want to take it. So they, you know, their issue is taking profits too quickly, mine's the opposite. You know, I think that's, that has always kind of been one of my bigger issues is holding onto positions too long. Yep. And so how much do you think what we've just talked about applies to that in more situations, right? Is it just situations where you're in profit really quick or you're close to your target really quickly or is it other types of situations that are maybe similar? No, it's definitely not just that. I mean, even on the other side of it where, you know, I used to hold, if a trade was losing, I would hold onto it too long to hope it would come back. So it works both ways. It has worked both ways for me in the past. Right, so hope was kind of part of the equation then. Yeah. Just to kind of dig into that piece a little bit, like how would you, could you either describe more of what the hope is? Like, is it just the hoping to make more money? Is it just as simple as that? Or is it something else? Is it connected to your broader goals and things that you were talking about? Well, it's definitely not wanting to take a loss, you know, in that example. So if I was in a losing trade, you know, if I waited and it came back, then I could close it for a winner, possibly instead of taking a loss. So that would be part of it. And then, you know, on the winning side, what we just talked about is, you know, I want it to be a bigger winner, not just what it is, you know, it could be a bigger winner, could be double, you know, triple. Yeah. Where do you think that hope comes from? I mean, I always thought of it as just kind of the whole greed thing. You know, I think we talked a little bit last time or maybe I wrote in my initial deal that, you know, from trading in front of the community, I think part of it would be from, you know, not wanting to take a loss for them or show them me taking a loss. But for my own personal, I don't know, I think my own personal trading, it's pretty similar. You know, it's like my ego, you know, I don't want to be wrong. So if I just hold it and it comes back, then I'll be right. Yeah. So that's where we get the causality kind of lined up, right? The hope is producing the greed, not the greed producing the hope. And then the hope is then coming from the weakness and confidence that we, like we talked about last time, that kind of gets exposed in these moments, right? There's just kind of greater, your confidence is more on the line with either a loser or a potential winner, right? You could, you know, have a big surge of confidence that comes from it or your confidence could take a hit. But if your confidence is generally more stable, then we don't care about the surge and confidence that you're gonna get because it's not real, right? If you were to take, if that position were to double, right, and you'd make double as much as you initially got, but you traded outside of your system, you know that the money's not really earned. You know, it's now a false confirmation which could actually lead to more bad behavior which could lead you farther away. So, right, like to get confidence trading outside of your system is something that happens so frequently. But the reality is you don't want that kind of confidence. You don't want that kind of confirmation. So, it's like, what is it coming from? If you feel more solid and stable about your trading period, hard stop, then you don't need to trade outside the system, hard stop. And I think that's where, I think the hope is kind of getting produced, right? You're hoping that it gets bigger because I'm gonna feel better about myself. I hope it doesn't, you know, close a loser because I'm gonna feel worse about myself. If I'm solid and stable, regardless of those outcomes, then I don't give a shit and I can close it either way. Yeah, I mean, the crazy thing is I teach this to my community all the time. Like, okay, even if you break your rules and you have a winning trade, that's the worst thing that could happen because now you are, you've incentivized yourself to do it again. And yeah, it's one trade. So who cares really if it's a winner or loser unless you're just in this for a quick buck. If you're in this for the long haul, it doesn't really matter. So it's just, yeah, this is stuff that I talk about all the time. And so that's part of the frustration I think is because then I turned around and I did it myself. But so it's not, again, not for lack of knowledge. It's the lack of causality. So now elevating your focus on having your confidence be solid and stable and looking for anything that is gonna weaken it or take away from it, just in general, not in these specific moments, right? That's what you're looking to do. And so the more solid and stable your confidence is, the more you are kind of happy and satisfied and comfortable with what you've done to date, right? We're not talking about the future to date, right? Then that sense of admiration and a desire for others to think more highly of you. It's like, well, are you thinking highly enough of yourself? And it's not to like blow smoke up your ass, it's to have the recognition that you're beginning to acquire for the things that you've earned to this point. And when you have that, then it makes it easier for you to go after the next set of goals and aspirations or expectations, right? We wanna call it that, right? Because you know that you're not fighting for something that those goals can't provide you if you get them. Because otherwise you're just gonna keep repeating the same pattern, right? So it's a sense of accomplishment, admiration, pride, satisfaction for everything that's come before or at least deserves it. Because in the absence of that, your mind is like looking for a way to make up for it. And so if I can squeeze out more of this trade out of this trade and make more money, well, then that's gonna make me feel better about myself. But why do you need to feel better about yourself? Well, it's because I'm compensating for the things that I was not recognizing before. And it's just going after it in the wrong way. So going after a new accomplishment to replace the absence of that pride and satisfaction for old accomplishments that it doesn't compute. So that's where the stability can come from. And that's what was missing in the sort of analysis, like why you were able to talk about this with your community and teach it and not follow it at all times. You can do it a vast majority of the times when these things pop up, it can be incredibly frustrating to see that gap exist, between what you're saying and teaching. And it's like, you're not being disingenuous, it speaks to why and how the mental game matters. In the instances where you can't follow through with knowledge and experience and skills that you have, it's not because the knowledge and skills experience, that's not the problem. Now there's an underlying weakness in your mental emotional state that's forcing your hand to do things that are counter to what you know. And that's why that gap exists. And it's not like a personal flaw, right? The confidence thing, these are functional, foundational things, right? You would never use the physical analogy or you'd never say, well, I'm worthless or I should feel bad about myself because I have an ankle injury. Like, well, it's just functional. This is just how your confidence functions. And when there's something that is not functioning, right, this is what shows up. You start to hope, start to experience greed. Well, then we get your confidence functioning more properly, that will eventually go away, but it's not like instantaneous, right? There's gonna be a training process that has to go in. So that's why I say, you know, have the awareness at the start of the trading session of these situations, have some corrective logic. And now that we've added another element here, you can also say something effective. Well, I also don't need to hold onto these positions and or not close these positions because I feel really good about what I've accomplished today and I'll feel really good today when I follow my plan in the face of these triggers, right? In the face of these emotions. Yeah, that's interesting. Cause I, yeah, at the end of the day, on days that I just feel exhausted or not fulfilled or even no matter how much money I made, it always revolves around if I did it the right way, if I followed my plan. So, and you're saying that a lot of that comes from my lack of recognizing accomplishments in the past. Well, never, I've never thought about it that way. That's interesting. I like that. Okay, good. Yeah, so the preparation repetition now is the key. So the data collection gives you the vision to see these situations, right? Then we've got a game plan, like very targeted specific corrections. Trouble is, right? I don't want you to show up to that moment in real time and then have to kind of dig the strategy out of your head. That's why you got to prepare it before the start of the trade today. So it's clear in your mind and then that gives you a chance, right? Now there's a probabilistic chance that you can make some improvement, right? And I think the probability wasn't zero, right? If you didn't do that, just having this conversation, I'm certain that you're gonna be more aware in those moments now. But we want to just raise that probability as high as possible because when you start to inject the logic and it's a technical term that I use in my system, right? It's just a fancy word for thinking but what makes injecting logic different than thinking is that you are training new ways of thinking ahead of time so that it builds potency for those moments when your emotions are heightened because we know that when your emotional system is overactive, right? It shuts down higher brain function and you start to lose access to the part of the brain that is responsible for controlling your emotions. So we have to like amplify and intensify and create more potency to these corrective points of logic, right? That are going to reduce your emotionality because if you just show up in that moment and try to kind of think your way through it on the fly there will be times where you'll be successful and make progress but there will still be times where the emotions will steamroll you. You'll make the same mistakes and knowing you, right? You might even be more pissed off at yourself because now here you have the correction but you didn't use it properly and it's not because the correction is bad it's because the preparation didn't allow it to have the strength to have a chance and that was the mistake, not in the moment. So the preparation is really key. So what I would say is try to craft a sentence or two something that's bite-sized that hits on both points, right? That's correcting the sense that I don't deserve to take profit this quickly or it's already in profit this quickly then it must be something that's kind of correcting a little bit more of the technical side but then also something that is bringing in the well, I don't need this because I feel satisfied and proud about the past. Like bring that in to give yourself an opportunity to strengthen your confidence in that moment because this to me is like where strength is forged, right? This is where mental toughness is created. It's in these hard moments, right? Kind of like you can't be brave unless there's something fearful, right? You can't be gritty or resilient unless you're facing tough times. Well, what is that? That's where strength is generated just much like in the gym where you're trying to build muscle. It happens in those last few reps where it's really hard. So when it is hard or when I should say when it's easy for your confidence to be weakened that's where there's a lot of value for it to get strengthened and doing this successfully week over week or day over day, week over week month over month, like that strength is going to get internalized and eventually you're not gonna need this logic anymore but that's probably three to five months out. Maybe faster. I mean, you might see some corrections come in pretty quickly but I tend to like to have that kind of a timeframe just on your radar because like the mastery or the true internalization of this just it just cannot happen that fast. Especially something with as repetitive as this is. Gotcha. Okay. Well, that's good I've actually, that actually kind of fits in with what I had already started doing which is I just created just basically a couple PowerPoint slides and what I did was I I took screenshots of that trade, that specific trade and I just, I put it on there with just a couple lines of comments so I could kind of relive that and that's something that I had planned on doing kind of every morning but having this to kind of dig in back to the the specific things we've talked about today too will go on there and yeah, so that's good. Awesome. So just looking at the other trade in the data collection which was the Power Hour one that, as you said I should have closed earlier. Is this, is everything we talked about kind of apply in that situation too? Right, you did the right thing but those kind of reactions of, you know kind of fear or yeah, we're still Yeah, yeah. I would say it's along the same, same lines. A little bit of hope in there. Yeah, I just, you know, it's just kind of I think it was more hindsight 2020 than anything. You know, I followed the plan. I took it off, ended up taking a loss ended up would have been a really nice winner. So it just kind of triggered that thought process. I was like, I gotta write this down to figure out why I was having those thoughts, you know. If I followed the plan, of course you're not always gonna have winning trades when you follow the plan but for some reason that one just kind of triggered. It was right at the end of the day and so I just, I put that on there. But yeah, so the answer to your question I think it flows right into what we were already talking about with the other one. Right, because if that hope wishing wasn't in there and it wasn't there kind of trying to make up for that weakness and confidence, right? So that would imply that your confidence is strong or stronger than you don't kind of, you don't need to make money in this particular trade because you know what you've accomplished, you know who you are, you know what you can do and you know that there will be plenty of other opportunities. Yeah. So move on. Yeah, and that was one that I never, you know, I mean, after I wrote it down I don't think I ever thought about it again. Okay, yeah, great, right. Yeah, so that's just an instance where we're not trying to correct it on a technical side. We're trying to remove more of those just like kind of flash points, right? More of those, just the noise in your mind because the more that gets cleaned out the greater presence and poise you have and the more intuition you're gonna be able to start to generate, you know, if you decide to add more true, you know, discretion to your trading which I know we did talk about some. Perfect. Yeah. Okay, so yeah, I'm just looking at some of the other kind of points from the questionnaire, you know, being overly results focused, getting ahead of yourself, trying to make money fast. They all kind of feel like they have a bit of the same kind of flavor of what we've discussed both today and in the last session. Yeah, yeah, I agree. Yeah, and to me, this is kind of where the power comes in and looking at it a little bit deeper is that you can have, you know, either one central, you know, flaw or one central correction that's gonna kind of correct, you know, several different kind of data points at the surface, you know, and data points I'm talking about like the greed, the FOMO, a little bit of the overconfidence, a little bit of the fear, the overall results, all that stuff can get corrected. What might happen, okay? And so you've got sort of a, what I would call a more macro generalized correction to strengthen your confidence, right? Everything we just talked about. You might need to have some slight adjustments to what you're saying to yourself from an injecting logic standpoint when you find, you know, that you're getting ahead of yourself versus when you find, you know, FOMO creeping in. Like bottom line is I think you're gonna make improvements no matter what doing, taking these steps, they might just come a little bit faster. The more targeted you have some of the other, you know, kind of reactions or thoughts that come out. So just keep an eye out for that. It's not, I wouldn't say it's a requirement on my end over the next few weeks, but something to just keep in mind. Yeah, okay, cool. All right, so just to kind of recap then next steps, continue with the data collection, continue with the perfectionism worksheet. And in general, we're looking to strengthen confidence and then you'll have specific opportunities to do that when, you know, those triggers come and specifically when there are these trades that are quickly in profit. And so you've got this injecting logic, you've got the trade kind of prep prepared for and reviewed as part of your, you know, pre-market warm-up. I would say to get ahead of any potential overconfidence in making mental game progress, because that is a real thing. Do not take it off of your pre-market prep at least for the next 60 days and keep an eye out for any kind of sense of monotony in reviewing it, because it is gonna be the same thing, right? It's much more important to get the idea in place than memorizing a specific statement, right? So if you need to change the words to keep it fresh, that's fine as long as the idea stays the same. Monotony is my enemy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 100%. And I don't want that, I don't want that here, right? Could we need to keep, like, but I want you to feel the sense of danger every day, at least for the next 60 days, that if you don't prepare for this, right, that risk, the risk goes off the probability of your success here goes down, you know, in those moments to be able to avoid making the mistake. A, B, you miss the opportunity to strengthen your confidence, which then just delays, right? You having to keep working at this, which, you know, my stuff should eventually fade into the background, right? This is not an everyday thing, or sorry, this is not something you have to be doing long-term, it's really around some of these particular problems, or then you just graduate, so like, all right, well, how much in the zone can I be in the trading day? You know, those kinds of opportunities start to come out, but that you can only graduate to that level when this noise is truly removed, like on a reflexive basis, right? You're not battling up against it, because battling your emotional reactions takes up mental bandwidth, which is not allowing you to be as clear and present as you want, when they are fully removed and you're just automatically there with less noise, then that top-end improvement becomes an option. Yeah, that's good, that's exactly what I'm looking for. I mean, I just, maybe you can tell me different, but I would say most people who hire you or somebody like you would be that they're having problems, right? I mean, obviously, I've got issues, we all have issues, but my thing is I feel like a lot of what I do is good, but I wanna just continue to take it to that next level. I just wanna, well, I feel like I'm doing everything good. I know there's things that I could do even better. You know, I wanna see how good of a trader I can be. Which is awesome, yeah, I mean, so yes, most traders come to be with, most people come to be with problems and I'd say probably 10 to 15% stick around to do exactly what you're asking, right? Which, because they're as excited as you are to fulfill their potential and see what can actually be accomplished. So, yeah, and I'm excited to do that work with you. Cool, awesome. Great stuff, Jared, appreciate you. Absolutely man, good to talk to you as always, Steve. Okay. Yeah, so from our standpoint, I think given this, I would say we go a month to give you more time to really solidify the progress here. Cause I said 60 days, but like, pragmatically speaking, I think, within 30, you're gonna feel a level of command for this is my anticipation, a level of command of this that is gonna reduce a bunch of that noise, which is gonna create an opportunity for us to look at what a game improvement looks like. It may be a tiny bit premature and if it's time-wise doesn't work cause the holidays, then we could wait till next year, but that to me seems like the most productive use of our time. We can talk in two weeks if you want. I just, I worry that we might be a little bit gonna overlapping on things we already did versus, you know, what we're kind of just getting to might from a, for you, for your standpoint, but also from a podcast standpoint, might be a nice, you know, kind of like queer progression where we can talk about the zone. We can talk about what, you know, kind of that a game improvement really looks like and specifically for you, how to kind of start tapping that more often. Yeah, agreed. Unless there's, unless something really comes up, like, problematically, you know, in the next four weeks, I don't think we need to talk and kind of give you the time to really just like kind of integrate it. And the thing is the steps that we took today, like you can do on your own, right? And I'm certain that if you ask that question, like, so let's just say another problem pops up and you ask that question like, all right, well, why the hell was I doing this? Just ask it pragmatically, right? And actually answer the question, like, why does it make sense? And then, you know, write down your answer and your first, the first kind of bag of tricks you're gonna pull out is like, does this fit with this sort of confidence dynamic that we've already explored? The answer is no, then, you know, maybe that's a pause for us to like dive in if it's something that's particularly problematic. But my guess is the answer is probably gonna be related to that and you'll probably make some progress with it, just applying that, because confidence is the foundation. So it's like, it's gonna likely apply in most situations. And then maybe there's just like some slight adaptation you have to make to the logic to help correct it. That to me seems like the most likely, like worst case scenario. And certainly just switching your mind out of a self-critical, you know, hypothetical why. It's like, I don't care what the answer is. I'm just gonna be mad or I'm gonna be upset to a practical why of like, all right, let's try to make sense of this because there's something I'm not understanding or something is off that I don't yet understand or can identify. That changes the ballgame and you're not gonna be as, you know, kind of mentally consumed by those mistakes as you would have been in the past. Gotcha, okay. I like it. All right, man, good stuff. Well, I don't have to talk to you before then. Have a great holiday season and I'll see you in the new year. And if I talk to you before then we'll get at it. Yeah, you too. Thanks, Jared. Appreciate it. All right, bye. Bye.