Book Club - Trading in the Zone - June 2022

@Marco I am glad you have never had a hulk day and maybe you are lucky that your natural personality may not lead to them. I can only speak for myself in that when I have lost control and had a "hulk" day; the emotional wreckage after is far worse on me than the financial damage. While I do not like the financial damage, I caused on myself; it is not a sum of money that is so great it will affect my life (due to the small risk I am currently trading). It is my emotions of "revenge/getting it back/etc" that COMPLETLY took over (Dr Reid refers to this as our monkey mind). I have children and sometimes I have lost my temper on them & yell at them. This is also a loss of emotional control on my part (even if they deserved it). I feel badly about that too after, but not as badly as I feel when I have hulked out. The children provoked me and I do not harm them emotionally; I just get a little too fired up. The days I have hulked; it is like my mind has lost all reason and rationale. I am provoked because (like Mark says) I had expectations & those expectations weren't met - that is a mistake. I actually find it rather embarrassing, but I share this openly in hopes it could help others. My last example and I am not sure it is a good one, but I did think it after the 1st time I LOST control - it was like drinking too much & the next day your friends tell you about something you said/did...maybe you cannot even recall, but all you feel is embarrassed and terrible you said/did this thing that in your right mind you would not have done...hulkng out feels a little like that to me (or it did at the time). I understand that feeling of "leaving money on the table"... that is actually more my issue than the hulking out (although I have experienced hulking out and it is not fun). I hope to never again experience hulk & am working to further develop the right mindset and strategic game to be able to better hold my winners. Without knowing more, I am not sure if your issues are technical or psychological. I can speak again for myself in that I had to grow in both areas and while I have made improvements in both areas in the past year; I still have road ahead to grow in both areas. I think if you asked a lot of people, they would say the same thing. Thank you for sharing and I am glad you are in book club to grow in your psych trading game:)

@WearyBear - I am sorry you hit max loss on Friday. That is tough. Maybe look at the things in the book you have already highlighted as some may help you mentally prepare for next week. I would recommend also relaxing this weekend...exercise is the body's natural way to get stress out, being outside, meditating - all of this helps:). See you Thursday:)

"The consistency you seek is in your mind, not in the markets" This really hits the nail on the head for me. In hindsight, this week was a good example. I had a good start to the week and traded well. I was unable to NOT have high expectations heading into yesterday's trading session and I think my market analysis suffered as a result. Yesterday became a max loss day for me. Today, yesterday's max loss is very much on my mind and I feel much more cautious.