An Open Letter to Edenbridge

Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent. ~Victor Hugo

I work as a psychologist for traders and portfolio managers in financial markets around the world. I'm currently writing my fifth book. All through the book's gestation, your music has been my companion and inspiration. In your work perhaps even more than mine, you don't always see the impact you have on others: the moments when someone finds in your efforts that which is noble and uplifting. My book would not be the same without you, and for that I'm grateful.

Brett Steenbarger


Edenbridge Site

Starlight Reverie

Fly on a Rainbow Dream

Shine

Wild Chase
.

Brief Therapy and a Philosophy of Trader Coaching

My work in coaching professional traders has been shaped by my experience in the field of brief therapy, a collection of short-term techniques for accelerating change processes. Having taught brief therapy for many years to psychology interns and psychiatry residents--and having co-written a standard textbook in the field--I've been steeped in brief therapy as a philosophy, not just as a mode of helping. Here's how that philosophy impacts the actual process of working with traders:

* Seek Targeted Change - Change efforts are most likely to be effective if they are targeted to very specific changes in thought, feeling, and/or behavior;

* Stay Active - Change occurs from *doing* things differently, not just by talking to someone or by writing in a journal;

* More is Not Better - Brief therapists emphasize intermittent helping, leaving people on their own to practice and apply newly learned insights and skills, not encouraging dependence on a helper;

* Build on Strengths - People have many positive, adaptive qualities. Building on those reinforces health, confidence, and self-efficacy;

* Efficiency as Well as Efficacy - Brief therapy emphasizes time-effective methods for change, keeping the helping process affordable and not too burdensome;

* Strike While the Iron is Hot - Work on problems while they're occurring; changes are most likely to stick if they're rehearsed in realistic settings and situations;

In practice, this philosophy has me working very intensively with people for relatively short periods of time, using very hands-on techniques for altering problem patterns and applying those techniques to many situations. Weekly or monthly interactions are simply too infrequent to sustain the momentum of change; once progress has been made, then it can make sense to space meetings out over time to encourage the long-term internalization of the changes and guard against relapse.

To encourage this intensive interaction, I do not charge people for time spent on the phone or interacting by email (a far cry from the practice of coaches who run the meter at every possible opportunity); I want no barrier to regular contact. But once that contact leads to change, the goal is for the trader to sustain the process himself/herself, not meet for unlimited interactions with only a vague focus and agenda.

There is much in the brief therapy philosophy that traders can apply when they're acting as their own coaches. That will be the focus of my next post.
.

The Daily Trading Coach

Well, here's the proposed cover for the new book. It will be divided into 101 short "lessons", each covering a specific aspect of or approach to the coaching/developmental process and offering specific exercises to incorporate into a daily routine.

Every major approach to the change process will be covered; quite literally I'll be showing readers how to be their own "brief therapists" and then apply the methods to their trading.

My goal is to write the most complete, most practical self-help book possible. More to come!
.

New Features for a New Book

As I write the upcoming book on becoming your own trading coach, many new elements are falling into place. I've already mentioned that the book will include fresh trading psychology material, including a primer on identifying historical patterns in markets using Excel and new self-help methods drawn from recent research in psychology. Other new features will include:

1) A Hybrid Structure - The new trading book will be both a print text and an electronic resource (e-book). The book will include links to a variety of Web-based resources, many of which will be on this site, so that readers can go into depth on topics of their choice. These links will be updated regularly, so that the book will always be up to date. Many of the links will be to audio, video, and graphic features, so that the book will facilitate multimedia learning without being burdened with the expense of color graphics, an included DVD, etc.

2) Interactive Features - Readers of the book will be able to share questions, comments, and ideas through this website, so that we can readily learn from one another. In addition, I will be setting up an email account specifically reserved for use by book readers, so that they can ask me questions about the book and ways to apply the ideas to their own trading. The links will be built into the text, so that online readers can simply click and interact with each other and with me.

3) Trader-Friendly Reading Format - Many traders don't have time to read lengthy books; this is one reason blogs have become so popular. The new book is written as 101 short lessons, each with a specific focus and concrete techniques and resources to use for particular trading challenges. These lessons are several pages each, with a very practical focus. They can be read in order or used as a reference work, so that when problems arise, you can turn to the appropriate lesson and begin work on the issue immediately.

I am very confident that the book will contain more information--and more concrete-usable skills and ideas--than any of the high-priced seminars and services currently offered by the self-anointed gurus. It will link with ever-expanding multimedia content, and it will facilitate communication with the author and with other readers. And the price will be reasonable, very reasonable--well within the budgets of beginning traders.

I'm betting that traders can go much further than most people realize toward learning how to become their own psychologists. With the integration of online, multimedia resources into traditional books, publishing is entering a new era--an exciting period in which ideas and skills can now be illustrated and demonstrated, not just described. The book will no longer be a one-way communication from author to reader, but a starting point for ongoing conversations and education. With enhanced content, books can actually teach, not just inform.

There are so many problems and concerns in the world these days: economic, political, ecological--you name it. Amidst those problems, there are exciting things happening all around us that make this a fantastic time to be alive. New technologies promise to extend the mind's grasp and accelerate learning. My hope is to take a small step toward this vision. I look forward to taking that step together.
.

Finding Your Edge as a Trader: A Linkfest

Becoming your own trading coach can be a daunting challenge, but there's no reason to go it alone. Here are some online resources that might be of help to you in extending your edge as a trader:

Vertical Solutions: creative market ideas and resources for testing trading ideas.

Daily Speculations: a range of insights about trading, markets, and life from Victor Niederhoffer and Laurel Kenner.

Quantifiable Edges: offers tested trading ideas in blog and newsletter, including a tracking of (very solid) performance.

Market Tells: loads of market data and indicators, tested trading patterns, and an excellent trend-catcher system.

SentimenTrader: tested market patterns, sentiment analyses, and insightful commentary.

Trading Success: Ray Barros is a coach and experienced trader who offers plenty of resources for traders to mentor themsleves.

Twitter Trader: My Twitter service that posts to the TraderFeed blog (or to you directly if you subscribe; it's free), highlighting trading themes, news, and updated market indicators.

If you know of free or commercial services that are unusually helpful in aiding traders' growth and development, feel free to post in the comments section. I have found the above resources to be especially fertile sources of inspirations and insights.
.

Welcome to the New Blog!

This blog will support my new book, which will be available in 2009. Entitled Becoming Your Own Trading Coach, it consists of very practical, user-friendly lessons that will show traders how they can use time-tested psychological techniques to advance their learning curve, improve their performance, and effectively deal with the stresses that are common to trading.

Wiley will be the book's publisher, and the book will contain several new elements not found in either of my two other trading books or in the Trader Feed blog. I'll be blogging about the book as I'm writing it to keep readers posted about its features and its development. In the interim, if you have topics you'd like to see covered in the text, by all means leave your suggestions as comments to this and future posts.

One of the topics I'm most excited about covering is one that I've been wanting to share for quite a while, but haven't figured out the right venue until now: how to use Excel to identify historical patterns in markets. Part of self-coaching is training yourself to find potential edges in the markets; the new book will be the first resource I'm aware of to tackle that training.

Thanks for the interest!

Brett
.