The trader coach

Observing ourselves is the hardest task there is. We are heavily biased about ourselves in one direction or another, which is why an expert outside observer can open doors that were closed.

The most basic form of psychotherapy is two strangers sitting down to talk, telling each other their troubles and giving each other advice. That is the foundation. Everything else is built on it, because a person who is up to their neck in something cannot see their own situation from the outside the way a genuine outside observer can.

If the two strangers are well meaning and want to help, we reach a higher level of therapy. If the other person’s problem is not a problem for them, we have moved up another step in effectiveness. If I have had plenty of dogs over the years, I can easily give advice to someone struggling with their first one, but if I cannot manage my own time, I will not be a very effective time management consultant.

If the two strangers, or one of them, listens, understands and gives advice professionally, their experience makes them more effective still. If they keep in touch with other professional advisers and regularly share their knowledge, their insights and their cases with each other, we have improved the efficiency again.

People open up more when they know that what they say will have no consequences.

What is a trader coach?

A coach is not a therapist, but the basic mechanics of the two fields are the same. A coach is essentially a personal trainer who helps you improve in one thing, giving all their attention to their client. They are that well meaning, experienced, expert stranger who wants to help their client get past a sticking point.

Where can a trader get stuck?

A trader can be stuck on strategy, on money management, on analysis; they can hold misunderstandings and fixed ideas that make the tools useless or that keep tearing down what they have built. And they can be stuck, very seriously so, on the mental side as well: in the invisible patterns of self-sabotage, in the mistakes of stress management, in aversions around money, and in many other areas.

Ideally the trader coach is an active trader themselves, someone who regularly sits down in front of the monitor, watches the charts, puts their own money at risk and works on themselves continuously. They have lived through the same stress and the same doubts, they have run head first into their own subconscious patterns in the same way, they have escaped the unbearable tension of waiting with a deliberately risky decision in the same way as their client - only they have already learned to handle it.