Finding And Maintaining Your Personal Trading Zone – Mark Douglas

Author: Mark Douglas
Running Time: 90 minutes
Workbook Length: 2 pages

Description
The popular sports press often focuses attention on what they call “the zone.” This term refers to a state of mind “which produces the highest expression of oneself and the most satisfying results.”

Traders (just like great athletes, musicians, and artists) who experience this state of mind create for themselves the environment in which to be successful at their craft. For traders, that craft is the accumulation of wealth. Mark explores and discusses the underlying mental dynamics that cause you to enter and exit your personal zone. From his own experiences, he shows you the advantages of trading from within your zone and the pitfalls of trading without this critical mindset. He shows you how the zone applies to trading, and teaches what you can do to take conscious control of the process and use the zone to your advantage. Mark recently discussed this concept at the annual Futures Industry Association convention in the United States.

Most traders don’t recognize the psychological paradoxes inherent in trading. Therefore, they often never really understand why success is so elusive — always clearly within sight and yet just out of reach. Consistent success is difficult to achieve because the trading environment differs in almost every way from the environment of our everyday lives. For example, our fears usually help us avoid unpleasant or painful experiences but in the trading environment, fear colors our perception of market information and thus influences our actions. As incredible as it may sound, fear of making a mistake, losing money, or missing an opportunity will actually cause us to create the very experiences we are trying to avoid.

Mark believes that consistency as a trader does not depend upon your knowledge of market behavior but rather upon a unique market mindset. Mark draws upon his experience with hundreds of traders to explore the attributes and components of the market mindset that helps you to create consistent results in your zone of success.

About The Author

Mark Douglas

Mark Douglas is president of Trading Behavior Dynamics, Inc., a Chicago-based consulting firm that helps traders around the world (individuals, CTAs, and brokerage firms) master the psychological discipline necessary to trade successfully. Mark leads seminars, counsels individual traders, and consults with financial trading organizations. He is a frequent speaker for TAG in Europe and the Far East as well as the annual TAG conference in the United States. Mark’s first book, the critically acclaimed bestseller, The Disciplined Trader, is based upon his personal trading experiences. It is hailed as the most provocative and stimulating work on trading psychology published in the last decade. Mark has recently completed his new book, Trading in the Zone: How to Create a State of Mind That Eliminates the Fear, Stress and Anxiety from Your Trading.