Investing and Trading Psychology Condensed to 31 Precepts

Over the years I have created and collected the following pithy "precepts." These precepts are trading and investing guidelines that give a compass heading to trading integrity.

I offer them to you in their raw form. Some may make sense, others not. Please feel free to question, challenge, refine and edit with your responses.

1. We are who we are and we start from where we start
2. Each of us brings unique strengths to the markets
3. Every morning we agree to play as delighted beginners
4. Reality Pays. The more our minds model the market, the more in synch we get
5. We build on our strengths and manage everything else.
6. The outcome we have is the outcome we want
7. If what you are doing isn’t working over and over again, re-examine your internal models
8. Our internal process is more important than anything else because it drives everything else
9. You have the resources to improve your mental trading game. Coaching just helps find them
10. We begin our trading practice slowly and build it with flow and grace
11. Lean into fear. Fear is a primary cause of failure
12. If you are frustrated with the markets, that means they aren’t following the internal model you have projected on them
13. We increase the level of our awareness rather than the intensity of trading
14. As we expand our awareness, our interventions will happen sooner and be more creative and effective
15. We respect ourselves and celebrate our profits no matter how large
16. If we can experience a new behavior for a moment, we can experience it for a minute, an hour, a week, a year.
17. Change happens when we experience a new behavior that is aligned with who we are, feels emotionally satisfying in the moment and takes us to where we want to go
18. Avoidance is buying pain on credit with interest
19. If self-criticism made us trade better we would all be rich
20. We allow the markets to breathe through us
21. The markets are messy, our information is imperfect, our systems will fail and we can still make money
22. All trading systems are successful in some markets, all trading systems will eventually fail in all markets
23. The markets don’t care about you or your position
24. We seek the practice rather than the result
25. Learn about yourself with the delight of an anthropologist finding a lost tribe
26. We make internal maps of the market, but our maps are always distorted
27. Our negative responses are created by our maps, not the market
28. By changing our map, we change how we respond to the markets
29. All our trading errors have an ultimate positive purpose or intention
30. There is no “failure” just feedback
31. You have all the resources you need, although some may be out of your awareness