How to Rewire Your Brain for Trading Success // Ep. 19

In this Episode

• How to monitor your self-talk
• What the heck is the Neurophone?
• Why the alpha brainwave state is the key to focus

Why You Need to Rewire Your Brain to Succeed

Success in trading comes mostly from your psychology. But how do you upgrade your psychology?

We provide useful tools and techniques that we have used to upgrade our mindset and get rid of mental programming that did not serve us.

If you've been having problems with changing your mindset, this episode will give you practical strategies and tools that you can implement right now.

Read the Transcript:

Hugh: Hi Walter. What do you think about different methods of rewiring your brain for success? What have you tried? What have you seen work, stuff like that?   

Walter: It is a great question. I know you’ve tried quite a few things. I’d be interested to hear. It’s funny, isn’t it? There’s sort of two competing ways to look at it when you talk about this. One would be like setting a map for me to do what I want to do. 

What do I want? What do I want to achieve? What am I trying to do? Where am I trying to go? Versus the other side of it which is what am I trying to get rid off? People get it confused.

I believe that people look at your subconscious and they say things like, “Your subconscious is sabotaging you” or something like that. That is not really how I look at it. It’s like, if you are a programmer you can create any program you want. That program can be a virus that hack and steal people’s password or shuts down your system or stuff like that. Or, you can create a program that kind of sets you up on the path.

The way that you can do the other is, there’s lots of different ways. Hypnosis, especially for habits. If you have a habit of, let’s take mine. What I did is I would move my stop. So if I had a hundred and fifty pips of a risk on a daily chart trade and I saw that it went to a hundred and twenty pips toward my stop, I would move it. 

The trade is right. I just need to give it a little bit more room, let’s say that. That was my big habit. Hypnosis works really good for those sorts of things like stop smoking, stop overeating. Stop moving your stop loss when you shouldn’t, things like that.

I’ve also used what’s called the Neo neurophone and I can put a link in there for the show notes so you can check it out. Unfortunately, I do believe that the Neo Neurophone is no longer available.

However, you might be able to find used ones and you might be able to find an older version of it which is a little bit different but it basically does the same thing. It is an amazing device by a really cool inventor who died just recently. I think just last year, January.

Anyway, so that is another thing. You can use it to program your mind. You can use subliminal. You can listen to those when you are back testing; when you are around the house. When you are sleeping at night which is what I like to do. Sometimes, I’d turn them on during the day but usually, I just have them run at night.

There’s all those kinds of things like tapping that people have used. There’s also a thing where you kind of test your beliefs with your body and sort of reprogram your body, or reprogram your subconscious through that which is kind of interesting.

I think for most traders, for most people really the key is to get to the deeper level. When you realize like I have an issue or I am not going where I want to go, those two issues. So I’m trying to get rid of an issue or I’m trying to map out progress to where I want to go.

Once you decide what you are trying to remove or add then I think the important thing for you to do as a person, as a trader is to really sort of zoom in on the deeper thing so that could be like dream analysis that can do that.

What you are trying to figure out is why is it that my program, my subconscious program is setting me up for this? Why is that? What is going on? And then, you can reprogram it. I have never done it but people have talked about it. I know we are getting into the sort of a stereoscopic stuff but that’s cool.

People who do like past-lives therapy and they’ll talk about things. I’ve tried to do it but I didn’t really go. I should have gone to a hypnotherapist or someone who specializes in that.

I’ve actually just listened to CD’s and stuff rather than do it. I’d just fall asleep. So I haven’t really made much progress but I would like to though. I think the real key to me, there's a couple of things. Are you trying to remove something or are you trying to get something?

Obviously, we want to do both. We want to figure out what’s the issue and where do I or how will I map out where I want to go. The other thing is, it is not just writing down affirmation or staring in a mirror saying things. 

I think that stuff is great but a certain point, you’re going to hit a wall and I don’t think it is going to work. You are going to have to really somehow reprogram your subconscious. There are a lot of ways to do that.

I’d mention a whole bunch right now but to me that is the key. There’s a  lot of different ways. Like I said, hypnotherapy and lots of different ways. I know you’ve done some interesting ones as well that people might be interested in hearing about.       

Hugh: Hey there! I hope you find this episode useful. I just want to let you know that Walter and I give away something valuable every month that helps traders improve their skills. You can enter to win by simply leaving an iTunes review and leaving a comment on our YouTube videos.

At the end of each month, we'll look at the comments and reviews from the month and we'll pick a winner at random. Each comment and each review counts for one entry during the month that it's pitted. 

So if you're interested in that, be sure to enter after this podcast is over. Alright, back to the episode.     

Hugh: Yeah, sure. I think to take a step back, it is also useful to understand that you can reprogram your brain. This idea of neuroplasticity and some people think, “Oh, this is just who I am and that is how I’m going to be for the rest of my life.” That is simply not true.

So I think the first thing you have to understand is that you can change some of these really deeply ingrained habits. It might take awhile to get there but if you keep trying consistently, you can figure out one or the other.    

Walter: Absolutely. What you just said is really important and I want listeners to get this. What Hugh just said, that example that gave, you said, “I’ve always been this way” or, “I can’t change. I’ve always been this way.” That is a program in itself. 

People need to realize that. That is a program so you are running on that software. When you catch yourself, a really good way is self-talk. We all talk to ourselves. I hope we all do. I hope I am not the only one.

You can catch yourself’s program, they kind of bubble up a bit in those self-talk moments. That is really a good way to figure out, “Okay, this is the software I am running” on sort of thing.

I just want to highlight for everyone listening or watching what Hugh just said, “Oh, you can’t change your brain.” Or, “I’ve always been this way”. You’re right. All the research is so clear. I don’t want to get too personal but my wife works with people with brain injuries like really severe stuff.

It’s amazing how you can rewire the brain so that it goes around those areas that are broken or you know people who’ve had strokes and that part was dead. Or, there’s a study about the nuns. They live in a monastery. When they scanned their brains, a lot of them had Alzheimer-like brains. They’re indistinguishable from Alzheimer with all those plaque and stuff and yet they have no symptoms.

They put it out to the fact that they were like meditating, praying a lot and doing lots of reading. What happened was the neurons grew around the plaque areas. So they were actually normal. 

In appearance they’re normal in behavior even though their brains should say that they’d be in deep in the troughs of Alzheimer. I just want to point that out that what you’re saying is really important            

Hugh: Yeah and I’ve seen that too. I’ve read about it in some other books where people with missing parts of their brains and they were functioning pretty normally. It’s cool. For the stuff, I’ve tried some of the hypnosis stuff. I’ve tried energy healing that was really useful. I see your point where you said that there’s a deeper cause for a lot of these problems.

I think some of the stuff can be solved by just affirmations. “I’m good enough. I’m smart enough. People like me” or whatever but also you have to look at what is the cause. I found that for most people the cause is really trauma, some sort of trauma. That could be your childhood, that could be something maybe that marriage or whatever it is or past life like you mention if you believe in that kind of thing.

You can point to that trauma and address that. I believe that is the key to starting to heal and starting to get past to some of these roadblocks that you’re trying to solve.       

Walter: Absolutely. That is the key. What is going on here? What is going on? What is happening? How do I dig into it? Where does this trauma come from? There’s some root cause to it and then now that we’ve fished it out, what is the way forward? 

I think those three things you know, and not everyone wants energy healing. Not everyone wants hypnosis. There’s certain things that will not jive with you but that is a good list to start with.

The neurophone that I mentioned, I didn’t really mention much about it. What that kind of does is that, in a way it is like hypnosis. It’s in a way to put data into your head. So there’s anecdotes about people learning how to speak languages by using the neurophones.

You would plug it in like a, the way it works, you put these things on your head almost looks like an EEG or whatever. You put these little sticky tabs on your head and then you can plug into it like, let’s say you want to learn Romanian.

You will plug in a Romanian MP3 class and then it will actually go into your head basically. If you are quiet enough sometimes you can hear it. Depends on the person. Sometimes you can’t hear it but it’s actually going in there.

So that is how you could do it. You could use hypnosis track or you could use subliminals or you could write your own affirmations and record them and put them in with the Neo Neurophones.     

Your brain is a little bit weird when it’s on and sort of activated. Some people feel like they’ve got a shock. I’ve given it to people and they’re like, “Ah! Get that off me.” Everyone has got different reactions.   

Hugh: I bought one on your recommendation and I got the older one because you can’t get one brand new. I’ve been using it and when you put it on, I’m like in the zone just really focused. As if in the Alpha state and it puts you in.

Walter: Awesome.

Hugh: I would recommend giving it a try if people are interested.

Walter: We’ll put it in the show notes so you guys can check it out.

Hugh: Okay, cool. I think that’s a good list for people to start with. Thanks Walter.

Walter: Thanks.

Hugh: All the information in this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and is not trading or investment advice.

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• Leave a comment on YouTube
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Each action counts for one entry in the month that it was posted. We will pick a winner at random from the entries that month.

The giveaways can include books, coaching sessions, trading tools, or surprise gifts.

It will usually be something that will help you improve your trading psychology. 

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