This year will mark my 18th year of trading the forex and financial markets. I’ve learned some incredibly valuable trading lessons I wish I had been taught when I first started out. These are lessons which have cost me probably north of $2-3 million dollars in losses, missed opportunities, and making mistakes which took years to figure out (and unwind).

If you’re a struggling trader who’s making the same mistakes over and over again, take heed of these lessons as they’ll save you years in your trading process, and likely well over 6 figures in unnecessary losses.

Hence if you want the fast track to becoming a successful forex trader, learn everything there is to know about these 18 trading lessons. Do this and you’ll find yourself making more money and having greater trading success than before.

Let’s jump in.

1) Invert the Equations Of What Most Are Doing

I have a general formula which I apply to trading and life. That formula is to invert the equation (or process) of what most people are doing.

The bottom line is most people are not successful at trading. In fact, with almost all things in life, most are not in the top 10% of anything they do (job, profession, sports, martial arts, etc).

If that is true (it is btw :-), then most of them are likely following similar patterns and equations for their job, profession, sport, etc, and its NOT WORKING!

trader formula for success 2ndskiesforex

What’s the most common pattern you see with struggling traders? Most are not following their trading plan. Most don’t have a proper risk management profile. Most are spending their time on the charts and strategy, not their skills.

Hence, whatever the majority of people are doing – you’ll have to invert that process & equation. Follow this formula and my guess is you’ll find out how well it works in trading, and life as well.

2) Good Trading Requires Good Trading Skills

Trading is a skill based endeavor. There is no way around it. If you want to make money trading, you’ll have to build the skills necessary to do that month in, month out.

Most traders spend between 75-90% of their time looking for ‘the’ strategy, focusing on the charts, focusing on the next trade and how their going to make money. And most are losing money!

 

Look, it’s quite simple. If you want to play like Mozart, do you start off with the focus of playing like Mozart, or do you focus first on learning the keys, building coordination your fingers, learn to read sheet music, learn how to play chords?

The answer is obvious. You focus on the latter. Those are the core skills of playing piano. Do that, and in no time, you’ll be playing Mozart. Trading is no different.

3) Sim, Then Demo, Then Live

I have a framework for how you should build your trading skills to make money trading. The process is simple.

First, you practice on a trading simulator, focusing on the core skills of price action context. Second, you practice synthesizing those skills on sim, and then start practicing on a free demo account, first finding potential trading opportunities, then trading them on demo. Third, after you’ve built some consistency there, it’s time to go live (starting with a small amount first, then building your acct as you progress).

The formula is simple: Sim, then Demo, then Live.

Do that and you’ll shorten your learning process.

4) Treat Demo Trading Just Like Live Trading

Ever thought to yourself “I can’t get excited about trading demo as there’s no money on the line“? Anytime a struggling trader tells me that, I know that they (right now) don’t have the mindset to make money trading.

Think demo trading is something not to be treated seriously? Think practice is over-rated?

Watch the following video of Michael Jordan on practice and how he related to it. See how intense he is about practice. See how seriously he’s taking it, then compare that to how you’re relating to practice.

As Michael said, “Every day in practice was like a competition to me. So when the game comes, there’s nothing I haven’t practiced before. It’s like a routine. I never feared about my skills because I put in the work. Work ethic eliminates fear.

After watching this video, tell me if you can still justify treating demo as ‘not-important‘. My guess is after watching this video, you can’t.

5) In The Beginning, Use Bigger Stop Losses, Then Decrease Them Over Time

75% of my students who do a ‘Trading Analytics‘ session with me (where I use 20+ metrics to analyze their performance and help them reduce their leaks while increasing profits), have one thing in common. Their stops are too tight.

In the beginning, your goal should be accuracy and consistency. Tight stops in the beginning requires precision. Do you really think you have precision in your trading skills right now? If the answer is no, try widening your stops a bit and see if your accuracy increases. If it does, you’re on the right track, like my student below.

trading analytics 2ndskiesforex

However you cannot always have bigger stops as it will decrease your profitability over time. You’ll be leaving money on the table. So focus on consistency first, then precision later.

6) Preparation is Highly Underrated By Most Struggling Traders

How much do you prepare (mentally) for your trading day? 10 mins? 15 mins? I’m willing to bet 75% of the traders struggling out there spend 15 mins or less preparing for their trading day. Are you one of them?

What’s the most important tools for a Football player? His body and his mind. What’s the most important tool for you as a trader? Your mind (for the most part).

Hence you need that tool (your mind) to be sharp and prepared for your trading day. Treat preparing for your trading day like a professional athlete, then see if your performance (and mindset) increases.

trading preparation 2ndskiesforex

7) Whatever You Don’t Measure, You Won’t Improve On

How many metrics of your trading performance are you measuring right now consistently? My guess is 90+% of you struggling traders out there measure 3 things at most:

#1 – % accuracy for your trading
#2 – account balance at the end of the week/month/year
#3 – how much your account is negative from your original starting balance (or how much you need to get back to break even)

Does this sound accurate?

How many metrics do I measure about my trading performance? About 20, and I can measure them so quickly, it takes me < 15 mins to measure.

Bottom line is, whatever metrics regarding your trading performance you are not aware of, you cannot fix. You have to be aware of your trading mistakes before you can fix them.
But even then, if you don’t take the next step (measuring them), you won’t know what your baseline is, and how you can improve.

And if you don’t know what your baseline is, and what you need to improve on, how do you plan on getting better?

8) Consistency Comes From The Mind

I’m close, but can’t seem to break through. All I’m really needing is a consistent trading strategy and trading plan.” Ever thought that to yourself?

Where do all your trading decisions come from? They come from your mind.

How many times have you written out a trading plan, and not followed it? How many times have you not followed your trading strategy? How many times have you not pulled the trigger when your trading setup comes?

Consistency in trading doesn’t come from the strategy or your trading plan. You won’t experience consistency in your trading till you have consistency in your mind.

Hence if you want to experience more ‘consistency‘ in your trading, you’ll have to wire consistency in your mind.

9) Information Does Not = A Good Trader

How many trading books have you read? How many trading videos have you watched? Probably a lot, yes? Yet you’re still struggling to make money trading. Why is that?

If watching videos, reading books (i.e. taking in information) made good traders, you’d likely be there by now. But you’re not. And that reason is simple.

Information does not = successful habits.

Trading is a skill based endeavor. I’ll take the trader who’s read only one trading book, and watched one trading video, but has practiced the core skills of price action context vs. the trader who’s read 100’s of books, watched 100’s of videos, but doesn’t practice their trading skills.

 

10) Successful Trading Requires A Successful Mindset

To make money trading, you’re going to have to build a successful mindset. This is a mindset which focuses on getting better every single day, regardless if they made money that day or not. This is a mindset which embraces the challenges trading provides.

There is a mindset you’ll need to make money trading. While that mindset is not fixed, there are certain habits and patterns of thinking you’ll need to make money trading. You’ll see these patterns in the best traders of our time.

Hence if you want to make money trading, you’ll need to build the mindset to get you there, and keep you there.

growth mindset vs fixed mindset 2ndskiesforex

11) Trading Can Be A Lonely Venture. Join A Trading Community!

Ever feel lonely in your trading quest? NEWS FLASH: You’re not the only one who feels this. Most traders do.

Anytime I visit traders and students in other cities, they all tell me how relieved they are to realize they’re not the only one having these experiences. There is no university degree in trading. Very few people will ever work at institutions with other traders. Plan on not being that person.

Once you realize this, and that you’re not alone, you also realize how beneficial it is to join a trading community.

I feel really proud on the trading community we have at 2ndSkiesForex as they’re all open, friendly, and really helpful towards others, especially the senior students. We’re all here for the same goal, and we realize how important it is to communicate and interact with others on this journey.

trading community 2ndskiesforex

Why should you try to tackle such a challenging profession as trading alone? Why not join an active trading community that supports your growth as a trader, where you can see others succeeding?

12) Focus on the How vs Focusing on the When

One of the most important mindset shifts you can make in trading is spending more time focusing on the ‘How‘ vs. the ‘When‘. I can always tell where a traders mindset is when they ask the question “how long will it take for me to make money trading?

Would you ever walk into a martial arts studio and ask “how long before I can beat up a black belt?” Would you ever walk into a piano school and ask “how long before I can play Mozart really well?” No, of course not. Not only is there no fixed answer for this, you’re focused on the wrong variable.

The reason why this is such an important mindset shift, is it gets you actively focusing on and directing your energy to the ‘how‘ and ‘what‘ that will get you from point A to B.

The ‘when‘ won’t get you from point A to B. But the ‘how‘ will.

13) Risk Management is the Most Underestimated Skill in Trading

90% of all struggling students who start my trading course have one variable in common. They don’t take risk management seriously and have inconsistent risk on each trade.

Now ask yourself, “How good are you at predicting whether your next trade will win or not?

Most likely, you’re not that good. If you were, you wouldn’t be taking so many losing trades that you ‘knew’ were going to lose now, would you?

There are 2 key points here:

1) you’re likely not that good at predicting your winners and losers (less winners)
2) trading is a game of probabilities and your trading distribution will be mostly random

Hence risk a fixed % per trade so each loss is always the same % of your account.

fixed-percent-equity-risk-model-superior-than-fixed-dollar-amount-graph-1-2ndskiesforex

14) There Is A Difference Between Planting Seeds & Watering Seeds

In April this year, my father passed away. I left within a day of hearing upon the news to spend time with my family and say my goodbyes to my dad.

The day I got back home, I realized how much we all were in the same vision, or spirit regarding our family. I realized this was a ‘window’ for us to make real changes, just like all big moments in one’s life are.

I talked with my family about how this moment was a window, and a great opportunity for us to plant new seeds for our family. But planting seeds is not enough if you want them to fully grow. You have to water them, provide sunlight, and give them proper soil. Do that, and the seeds (which are pure potential) will grow and manifest that potential.

So ask yourself, are you just planting seeds (watching videos, reading books, but not making any real changes)? Or are you actually watering those seeds, taking real actions, working hard every day to get better?

Which trader do you want to be?

15) If You’re Continually Making the Same Mistakes, Seek Training From A Forex Mentor

I could not imagine trying to learn more about becoming a Buddhist and do the meditation practices without a mentor or teacher. I actually did try (back in college) and for the most part, failed.

The same went for my trading. I knew at some point I needed training. I needed someone to provide feedback to me and help me see what I wasn’t seeing. This is something every professional athlete has (a coach or mentor). Why do you think trading would be any different?

If you’re continually making the same mistakes over and over again, you’ll need a mindset and path outside your current one. If your current path, skills and mindset was working, you wouldn’t be repeating the same mistakes over and over again now, would you?

Hence, if the above description sounds like you, get training from a forex mentor (or trading mentor), one that is a verified profitable trader.

chris capre forex mentor 2ndskiesforex

If they cannot (at a minimum) provide one year of verified profitable trading results, then most likely they aren’t a good trader, and most likely aren’t a good trading mentor.

16) To Make Money Long Term, You’ll Have to Get Comfortable With Uncertainty

How do most people make their money? Via a job, yes? A job which pays you a fixed salary on fixed dates. A job which requires you to work fixed hours, wear fixed clothes, and has a lot of fixed rules.

What’s the common denominator there? Everything (by and large) is ‘fixed’ or ‘solid’. You can rely upon that, which has its benefits.

Trading by default completely up-ends that process. The markets aren’t fixed, but ‘fluid‘, constantly changing. Bull trends one day become ranges, pullbacks, or bear trends the next day. You can make $25,000 one month, and lose $2K the next.

What’s the common denominator here? Most things are notsolid‘ or fixed in the markets. And that will totally mess with your brain, and sense of security.

Bottom line is, you’re going to have to get comfortable with ‘uncertainty’ when it comes to trading.

However by becoming a successful profitable trader, you can put the ball back in your court. And that + financial freedom will most likely eliminate about 75% of the every day stresses you experience in your life.

17) Always Wait For Your Price…95% of the time 🙂

If there is a trading lesson I’ve had to learn 100’s of times over, it’s this one. I cannot tell you how many times I got to the charts, noticed a trade setup just happened, and now its moving away from my entry, exactly as I had planned.

Of all the times I chased the trade and price, about 95% of the time, it came back to my price.

This is such an important lesson for 2 main reasons:

1) if the trade does come back to your price, and wins, won’t you be making more money that way? won’t you be losing money if you get in for a worse entry, and it goes against you?
2) what do you think being disciplined, and waiting for your price does to your self-image and trading mindset?

Which one of the above scenarios do you think wins? And more importantly, which one do you want to win with?

18) Your Brain Has The Tools To Make Money Trading, But You’ll Need to Re-wire It

I’m very serious about learning how the brain and mind works. Of the 50+ books I read every year, about 45+ are on the brain, mindset and meditation.

I’ve been studying neuroscience for over 20 yrs since my university days. I’ve spent the last 18 yrs meditating every day, completing a 1 yr meditation retreat and various practice progressions along the way.

There is one thing I’ve learned through all those years. That the brain, and how its wired, has the tools to help you make money trading. It also has the biases to cause you to lose a lot of money trading. Most likely you’ve already experienced this.

Now I’m guessing you’ve heard about cognitive biases? These are mental and neurological structures in your brain + mindset which cause you to make really bad decisions. A few examples:

1) The negativity bias
2) Confirmation bias
3) Fear of Missing Out
etc…

There are dozens of biases you have which will make it really difficult (if not impossible) to make money trading. Luckily, your brain also has a key feature (like hardware in your computer), that allows you to re-wire your brain to make money trading.

This feature is called Neuroplasticity. It’s how your brain can actually change its cellular and neurological structures to form new habits (i.e. habits that will help you make money trading).

What this means is, you have the ability to re-wire your brain to think and take actions like a successful trader.

The key is, you’ll have to re-wire your brain to do this, and that takes methods, applications and work.

You’ll need real practices, methods and training based upon neuroscience, cognitive psychology and a deep understanding of your brain + mind to make these changes.

Luckily this is a real thing, and my profitable students have proven this.

Hence if you want to start making money trading, you’ll have to re-wire your brain to do this consistently. And that only comes with training, practice and hard work.

Now Your Turn

What did you think of my 18 trading lessons? Did you find something valuable here and learn something new? I take my trading, and my mentoring very seriously, so please make sure to share and comment as I want to hear your feedback on this.

Being the last in a line of 6 kids, my closest brother growing up (Mike) was 2.5yrs older. This translated into him being a lot bigger (and taller) than me.

In my early years, my parents would often go to the movies and leave us home. Back then, cable TV was not like what it is today. After 2pm, there was no more TV, and only 30 channels were available.

Movies were not as ubiquitous as they are today, so many of those would repeat. One such movie was ‘Rocky‘. Ever inspired by such flicks, my brother and I would take all the furniture in the living room, push it to the walls and create a ‘ring‘.

We didn’t have boxing equipment, so we’d dig into our winter gear – grabbing ski hats and two sets of snow gloves. Minutes later we were going 5-10 rounds.

The problem with this scenario was the massive height advantage my brother had. He could simply fire away at range before I could even make contact, let alone cause damage.

This translated into me getting hit first, taking punishment on the way in. I had to fight through before I could start to cash in.

I definitely got knocked down more than he did. But every time I got knocked down, something in me emerged more as the fights went on.

At first it was frustration. This then transformed into anger. However the next step wasn’t an escalation in this line of feeling (which would have been rage).

Instead, I started to embrace the challenge – embrace the fight. I would relish in my abilities to take punishment while keep fighting on. I had to get smarter, learn to endure, and fight through the obstacles.

Without a doubt, I lost many of those battles. But I was determined to get my damage in, and keep on fighting.

Afterwards we’d take off the ski gear, move the furniture back as if nothing had happened. Next in the routine was to look at our faces in the mirror – observing the damage.

None of us said much, we just appreciated these little battles, and whatever scars came with. Why do I share such personal sentiments?

Mental Toughness for Trading

From all the emails & comments I get: the questions, worries, and doubts from struggling traders, I think a strong dose of mental toughness would be a game changer.

This article is going to be a 250 cc shot to kickstart a change in your mindset, build up confidence, and help you see victory.

Before I give my key tips to helping you build mental toughness for trading (and life), I have to share this disclaimer:

I do not claim to be the pinnacle of mental toughness. I experience doubt, worry & fear. Sometimes in these moments, I crack, falter or fall. But I will get up & try again. Often times, my first reaction when things go badly, is to get frustrated. Next I get angry. Luckily, that fuse burns quick and transforms into a particular focus (which I’ll share later).

Disclaimers aside, let’s jump into building your own mental toughness gear to survive and thrive in trading and life.

#1 Coping Is Not the Endgame

There is one trade you can bet on being 100% accurate – that you will encounter obstacles, losses, and setbacks in life and trading.

Most of the trading psychology and mental strategies I see other ‘gurus‘ dish out like microwave psychology meals is to ‘cope‘ with such moments. And herein lies the problem.

“Coping by itself is not the endgame, nor an effective overall strategy for dealing with losses, obstacles & setbacks.”

mental toughness for trading coping strategy 2ndskiesforex

It is a part of the strategy, but it is only one stage in dealing with mental, emotional or physical stress. You could equate it to treading water among crashing waves when you need to swim for shore.

This leads us to our next wilderness tool to survive and thrive in trading and life.

#2 Embracing the Challenge

embracing the challenge 2ndskiesforex

The next part of building mental toughness is to embrace the challenge. This means expecting it as being a given, while preparing for it in advance.

Big piles of dog-shit will land right on the front door of our lives, often times when we least expect it. Being prepared will help you step over such moments.

Embracing the challenge = an understanding that discipline & hard work builds a successful mindset.

It means giving up any ‘victim mentality‘. It means the death of you saying such statements as why me?‘, ‘if I only had this, I’d be successful…, or becoming religious during a losing trade.

It means not beating yourself down when you make a mistake or things go wrong, which only intensifies our negativity bias in trading, leading to more losses.

We have to be employing a positive mindset when our trades go south and life gives us a gut shot.

Embracing the challenge helps us bring a gun to a knife fight vs. those with a negativity bias. It also leads to the next key step in building mental toughness.

#3 Thriving on Adversity in the Face of Obstacles

thriving on adversity forex trading 2ndskiesforex

Once we’ve embraced the challenges in front of us, we now have a steering wheel to turn this vehicle in the right direction. To complete the turn, we have to shift into a new gear, which means thriving on adversity in the face of obstacles.

I could have easily come up with excuses why I couldn’t beat up my brother. It would have been far more convenient to look for a way out instead of getting punched in the face.

But something inside me said ‘fuck this…I’m going to damn well land my share regardless of how much I take on the way in‘.

Thriving on adversity while facing obstacles flips the coin with our mindset and the blue-light specials peddled as ‘trading psychology‘.

It takes the situation and turns it on it’s head, meaning you now look for solutions instead of focusing on the problems. It eliminates any victim responses which only deflate your self-image, or ability to rally your forces when behind in the game.

What would happen if instead of saying ‘poor me‘, or making excuses in trading, you grabbed the charging bull by its sharp horns and said ‘I’m going to mount you on my wall when this is done‘?

What would that do to your mindset the next time an obstacle got in your way.

Every time you overcome an obstacle, you build trust & confidence in your self-image & abilities.

Every time you give an excuse for why you didn’t succeed, you deflate your self-image.

“Overcoming is the real currency of success.”

Start investing in that – of embracing your obstacles and using them to test yourself as you climb the mountain of success.

#4 Drop the Problem Focused Mindset

Our negativity bias is quite strong in our brains. How strong?

If we were to map out all the neural connections and real-estate in your brain, you’d have 500% more networks dedicated towards a negative bias vs. a positive one (on average).

You can read more about the negativity bias self-image and comfort zone here.

Focusing on the problems only activates this negativity bias even more. It does so via two predictable neurological responses:

1) Your brain will search it’s database for other problems that matched (or were similar) to the current experience

2) Your brain will become more likely to trigger the fight, flight or freeze response

Why does your brain do this?

Regarding the first problem (no pun intended), the brain is a pattern recognition machine. Every input it experiences will be referenced for similar data points in our memory banks.

Focusing on problems only re-activates these neural networks.

If you remember from my last article, I shared two key points about the brain and neuroplasticity:

1) Neurons that fire together, wire together

and

2) Passing mental states become lasting neural traits

What this means is if you continually reactivate the neural networks which stored your problems, you only make these stronger and more dominant (thus increasing our negativity bias).

This leads back to point 2 – whereby your brain becomes more likely to trigger the fight, flight or freeze response.

The primary part of the brain which activates this reaction is your amygdala, a little almond like structure of neural tissue near the middle of your brain, and part of the limbic system.

parts of the brain 2ndskiesforex

The amygdala is super fast to react to any threat. The more you do this, the larger the grey-matter and brain tissue becomes. This only increases your propensity to react to said threats.

This is a major reason why every pip the markets moves against you creates a far greater psychological (& neurological) response vs. when the market moves in your favor.

It’s the basis behind every negative psychological bias you have, whether it be the recency bias, loss aversion bias, or pretty much any ‘bias‘ behind our bad trades.

Another problem with continually activating the amygdala is it actually reduces grey matter!

A triggered amydala takes us out of the PFC (pre-frontal cortex). The PFC is critical to analyzing the price action context, pulling the trigger when we need to, and making profitable trades.

Done enough times, and your hippocampus (helpful for regulating emotions and making calm/calculated decisions) will see a reduction in grey matter, thus making you more prone towards emotional (read: fearful, worrisome, doubtful) decisions.

In a few less words – set off the amygdala + fight or flight response, and you’ve lost about 10-20 IQ points. Good luck making profitable trades with that!

Hence drop the problem focused mindset as it will only increase your negativity bias and trading losses. The solution is the next tool in building mental toughness.

#5 Adopt A Solution Focused Mindset

positive mindset

Remember how I talked about your brain scanning the database for similar experiences when encountering a problem? A solution focused mindset by default bypasses the negativity bias.

This approach leads your brain to actively scan for solutions. It will look for either identical (or related) situations whereby you encountered the obstacle, yet found a solution.

This has the triple benefit of:

a) building up your neural networks for finding solutions,

b) reducing your negativity bias

c) adopting a positive mindset.

I’m guessing you can see the benefits of creating this trio above. One key thing to note is adopting a positive mindset means you are less likely to take a victim mentality in the face of adversity. It also helps to build up your self-image.

Focusing on problems only tells you what’s wrong with the situation – it doesn’t tell your brain what to do. Contrast this to a solution based mindset which specifically tells your brain what to do when you experience difficulties, losses or adversity.

Done enough times, you build a brain which is wired to solve, overcome and achieve. After many laps and repetitions here, you have laid the foundation for the sixth tool in building mental toughness.

#6 The No-Obstacle Mindset

no obstacle mindset 2ndskiesforex

NOTE: Before I jump into this next tool, grab a beverage + something to snack on as this is a juicy (but good sized) story.

In July this year, Aruna (my partner) and I taught the Singapore Seminar – Change the Way You Think, Trade & Perform at the Ritz-Carlton Millennia.

This was supposed to be a 2-day event. What ended up happening was a movie-like Us vs. the Volcano.

A week before the event we were in Bali, mostly relaxing and getting ready for the event.

The flight from Bali is only a few hours to Singapore.

The day of the flight was also the day before the seminar was to start, so we decided to fly out early, get to Singapore by lunch, and have plenty of time to do our final prep. Nature had other plans.

Getting to the airport early, we quickly find out our flight is delayed. The airline attendants said ‘you’re flying out today, there’s just a small delay‘.

I thought – Ok…2hrs gives us plenty of time to still get there well ahead of schedule.

While waiting, I started to notice during these 2 hours how the airport was getting more full by the moment. Pretty soon, the flight board was showing more and more flight delays (see below).

all flights cancelled

Bells going off in my head that something was wrong, I went back to the airline counter. What I found out was the worst news we could get.

Hundreds of kilometers west of us, there was a volcano. It wasn’t spewing lava, but it was ‘active‘ and puffing out huge plumes of smoke from the bowels of the earth. Although the skies looked fine, flights were still grounded as the smoke pillows ventured west…right towards our airport!

The real danger in flying with volcano smoke isn’t the visibility…it’s the ash getting sucked up into the engines, which then crystallize, and pretty much destroy the engine from the inside out.

The thing about it is – the airline attendants knew about the volcano the first time they told us of the delays, they just decided to not inform us of that fact.

When I came back the second time, I investigated what was really going on, and they finally told us why. Needless to say, I was furious as losing those 2hrs reduced my options tremendously. It was now the afternoon and no flights were likely getting out for the rest of the day, perhaps even a week.

My first response (like when I was a kid) was frustration…which led to anger…which led to me practically yelling at the guy (who was nice throughout the whole process, even though they f-d up in not telling us earlier IMO).

I was about to teach a 2-day seminar, with people coming from over 10 countries, one of them flying over 10,000 kilometers to be there.

This was more than just the money & reputation I’d potentially lose from cancelling the event.  It was about all those who spent their hard earned benji’s, taken off work, booked flights and hotels, which were now non-refundable.

How long was I frustrated, angry and feeling like I wanted to take someone out mafia style? About 1 minute. However, considering I’ve had an abundance of obstacles, problems and adversities in my life (some self-inflicted), I went into my general default mode – which is to look for solutions.

Because I’ve done this so many times, my mindset quickly resets and doesn’t see the obstacles, or get stuck. It works to go around, climb over, see through, or solve them…whatever it takes.  It is the same mentality Navy Seals have, and it is one you need to succeed in trading and life.

no obstacle mindset mental toughness 2ndskiesforex

This is called the No-Obstacle Mindset. It means that no matter what the obstacle is, you see it for what it is – an illusion. It means you see the solution and all the steps in between that get you there right from the beginning. It means you actually see yourself solving the problem, and doing everything you have to to make it happen.

Back to the airport fiasco, the situation was quickly degenerating with the crowds growing by the second. There were literally news cameramen filming the situation inside the airport. So what did we do?

After quickly assessing the situation, we had to setup a better base camp. Through the tortuga paced internet, already strained by more users than it could handle, we booked a hotel room nearby.  Needless to say, rooms were going up fast (along with the price) by the second.

We then contacted our agent on the ground (Ivan Delgado) who works with FXstreet, and ironically, was going to the event. So now we were both in the same situation.

The reality was this – all flights east of the volcano were grounded. That means the nearest airport (which only flew domestic) had no flights as well. We simply couldn’t get out. The nearest airport was in Surabaya (Java), which was a 10+ hour drive by car.

I called the only local helicopter service, but he had a full book already, so no go there regardless of what price I offered him. There was only one other option – we’d have to wade through the Indonesian jungles, and jam-packed over-populated cities.

Ivan came up with a great plan and talked to his brother-in-law, a former truck driver who was part Jack Bauer-part Michael Schumacher. If the airlines told us at 6:30 am the next day all flights were grounded, we’d activate plan B and make the drive (which included a ferry to the island of Java).

Sure as sh!t, 6:30 am came, with the news all flights were grounded for the entire day. 30 minutes later, we had booked the last flight out of Surabaya to Singapore. However this was not the end of the adventure though.

To make the last flight out, we could only take 3 loo breaks, 2 of which had to be during gas refills. This plan B also meant we’d have to re-arrange the event with the attendees, catering and hotel till the next day since we’d only arrive at 2 am.

On top of this, we had to arrange for the hotel dry cleaning service ready to press our travel-wrinkled suits. At best, we’d have 3.5hrs of sleep for a 12 hour event. Somehow, we’d jumped over all the obstacles, and had an amazing event with the traders coming out completely different than how they came in.

Below is a photo of all the attendees (notice the blood shot eyes from no sleep with me – far left?)

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Photo of Ritz Carlton in Singapore where we we were staying at.

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Having a problem focused mindset would never have gotten us through this situation with flying colors (perhaps not even at all). It would have led to us being worried, fearful and complaining about what was wrong with the situation.

A solution based mindset was the only way we could have handled this, but there was one missing ingredient. We had to have the mindset of no-obstacle. We had to see the solution, and every step in between.

There was no space for doubt, which would only lead to delays, and we had no time to spare. Everything had to fall into place with dozens of small steps and decisions to make it work. It took everyone having a positive optimistic mindset that we could handle this situation.

The power of having a mindset of no-obstacle means you have the confidence, experience and belief there is nothing you can’t solve, figure out, or handle. Imagine how your trading process would be if you adopted this approach and made it the bedrock of your mindset.

 

In Closing

chris capre trading office 2ndskiesforex

I’ve just shared with you what I’d consider to be a solid foundation in building mental toughness for life and trading.

This is certainly not meant to be the end of it, nor the last article I do on it.

However, the methods, strategies and models in here can completely change your brain, mindset and performance.

To recap, you learned how:

1) Coping is not the endgame, but just a small step in the process
2) To embrace the challenges which helps you expect, prepare and take them on
3) How thriving on adversity flips the equation on its head and helps you to look forward to obstacles
4) Why you need to drop the problem focused mindset as it increases your negativity bias
5) That the answer is to adopt a solution focused mindset so you only concentrate on what you need to do
6) How the no-obstacle mindset gives you a mentality which overcomes

Take on all the above, and you can re-wire your brain for success in trading and life. This is a very real thing.

Mental toughness can turn your mind, thoughts and actions from losing trades to making money.

It can give you strength, resilience and confidence to meet your challenges of trading head on, replacing your fears, doubts and worries.

It will put intangible weapons at your disposal, increase your confidence to take on greater challenges, and sharpen your mental edge to cut through almost any obstacle.

With that being said, have you been using coping as your only strategy?

How fully have you been embracing the challenges you meet in trading, and are you seeing obstacles as opportunities?

Do you focus more on problems or solutions?

Make sure to comment and share your thoughts below.

For those that want to discover the power of mental toughness, make sure to sign up for my Advanced Traders Mindset Course where we teach you how to specifically wire your brain for success and build a positive mindset.