Chapter 11 - Why We Need to Learn How to Adapt (catch up)
W - “Changing our mental environment to correspond with the constant external changes going on in the physical environment is not automatic. The information stored in our mental environment about the nature of the physical environment can remain unchanged for years or a lifetime, for that matter, regardless of how outdated, useless, or even harmful it may be. And furthermore this outdated knowledge will continue to act as a force on our behavior, causing us to interact with the environment in completely inappropriate ways relative to the conditions. So even if we are experiencing satisfaction in certain areas of our lives, we cannot take it for granted that the conditions that we have learned to interact with will stay as we know them to exist. The outside conditions are in constant motion, presenting us with different forces to learn about and adapt to.” (p.137)
A - Mark explains that the information that is stored as energy in our mental environment may be outdated and not useful in dealing with the physical environment that is constantly changing and can actually hurt us as we deal with that physical environment. We have to learn and store new information so that we can interact with the physical environment in ways that create satisfaction in our lives.
A - When I started day trading, I had erroneous information about the nature of the market and used that information to trade which caused me to have a huge negative equity curve. It was only when I diminished the energy from the information that was useless for trading in an unstructured market (college degrees, job experience, etc.) that I was able to open my mind to the possibilities of what the market could teach me about itself. It was only then when I was able to experience satisfaction as a day trader.