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Are Your Mental Monkeys Helping or Hurting Your Trading?
Ever laid down to sleep at night and been overwhelmed by the noise in your head, the rush of thoughts, feelings and ideas coming at you so fast with so much intensity that you are incapable of processing them all in a way that allows you to drift off into a peaceful sleep? Ever gotten into a trade and found yourself in the exact same place? Buddha described this state that we can often find ourselves in as our human mind being filled with drunken monkeys all carrying on, jumping around, swinging from branch to branch, screeching, screaming and throwing things. I love this description because it gives such an accurate visual for what’s going on in our minds (and bodies) that we can connect to and relate to. When we can connect to it, then we can embrace it and direct our focus on really getting to know all of those monkeys. They are our single greatest tool that when embraced and understood, can be used to lead us to our greatest success. Why are they jumping around and yelling and screaming and throwing stuff at us? Have you ever been in the presence of a child that has something they are excited to share with you and is trying to get your attention? The more you ignore them, the more persistent they become until they finally find your tipping point where you can no longer ignore them. Our inner monkeys are just like that, they are seeking our attention. They feel they have something important to share with us and it is so important that they will do whatever they can to get our attention. they will not back down until they believe we have heard them, and that we understand what they are trying to tell us. Buddha taught his students how to use meditation in order to tame the drunken monkeys. I don’t want them to be tamed and complacent because I have learned they are not here to just distract me and cause me less sleep, they have a purpose and that is to bring awareness to an aspect of myself that I need to embrace in order to move to my next level of success. Many of them are triggered by some sort of perceived danger, which triggers a fear response and nothing sets mental monkeys off faster than a fear response. There are other triggers besides fear and getting to know all of them has helped me immensely in both my trading and my life in general. I now direct my focus on really getting to know them, understanding them and listening to them for the sole intent of understanding what it is that they are trying to tell me because when listened to, each of them provides me messages that help me move to higher levels of success. Through our membership, we teach our members to embrace their mental monkeys to inform their trading. For the past 20 years we’ve been helping our lifetime members understand how to use strategies they are already familiar with to protect and grow their portfolios. Our lifetime membership enables you to progress at your own pace. You can repeat any part of the weekend program as often as you choose so that you can master using technical analysis or fundamentals and each month there are additional tutorials and hands-on trainings to further enhance your skills. Our goal is to provide you with the knowledge required to begin trading confidently combined with a professional and supportive trading environment where you can interact with other traders and staff.
George KarpouzisGeorge Karpouzis is the co-founder of Learn-to-Trade and has been personally providing education and mentoring to over 3000 members since 1999. George has been trading in the stocks, options, futures and forex markets using technical analysis since 1986. With the help of advancements in trading technology the Learn To Trade program is now accessible worldwide. His background and passion for teaching brings an invaluable asset to our members. George is constantly striving to improve the program content and develop new strategic relationships for the benefit of the members.
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