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positive about, right? But we don't let what we are feeling interfere with our good judgment as to what action we may choose to take. |
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So, to repeat, it is not that we block out or expunge subtle feelings or even full emotions. It is that we are able to control (or regulate) how strong our emotions become. Further, we want to be able to mandate that our clear thinking be always at least a little stronger than our emotion. |
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One experienced scalper and swing trader put it like this: "I watch a stock nose dive when I've got 1000 shares on the line and I can feel fear or anger inside. But if you look at me you'll see no indication of how I feel. I do what I need to make the position work. Later, after the close, I might go outside and let out a yelp." |
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As all online traders and investors know, maintaining emotional equilibrium is tough to do. The very nature of emotion is that it is more powerful than thinking. We are, in a sense, swimming against the current in trying to go against the primacy of emotion. We are trying to develop what over a decade ago I called the discriminating mind, the mind that can stay one jump ahead of whatever emotional wave may wash over us. But this is the goal and the challengenot, for most, the common reality. And, make no mistake about it, it is indeed a challenge. |
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The better we get at being able to do this, the less fear and greed (as we discussed in Chapters 3, 4, and 5) are likely to overwhelm us. To be able to consciously choose to drop into the mode of positive yielding and experience it not as negative, passive helplessness but as a position of strength and appropriate action is an important tool to have to call upon. |
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A sound-bite way to say this: We are graciously giving in but not giving up. We feel just as strong as if we had exerted active control. |
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One difficulty with operating only from an active, assertive mode of control lies in the grandiose belief that we can master aspects of the market that are actually out of our control. This promotes further inaccurate beliefs and the employment of ego defense mechanisms that take us away from what is really true. |
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These defenses include blaming the market, the market makers, the government, brokerages, software, or other people and denying facts that are clearly presented to protect our false pride in our decisions. Of course, without self-insight, we don't know that this is what we are doing. We then add the need to believe that we can find an order to the chaotic market, where there is, in actuality, no inherent, absolute order to be found (Shapiro and Astin, 1998). |
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